


Houses

by canary



Series: Houses [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:41:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canary/pseuds/canary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scorpius Malfoy goes away to school.</p>
<p>And James Potter's legs keep invading his personal space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue

The first thing Scorpius Hyperion Doria Pamphilj Malfoy said when he arrived in England was, "I hate it."

His mother said, "Hogwarts will be lovely," but what she really meant was, _Understand that this is the way it will be_.

His father said nothing, which was not unusual. The three of them were standing on a narrow dirt road, between two very tall hedges, facing a gray iron gate. Several trunks and a cracked flowerpot were ranged around them.

After a moment, Scorpius's father waved his wand at the gate. A voice, which reminded Scorpius of the creaking hinges of the Gallery doors, said "Welcome home, Master." Scorpius's father smiled and stepped towards the gate. "Aren't you coming, then?" he asked.

"Go ahead, darling," said Scorpius's mother. She flicked her wand and all of the trunks vanished, leaving the former Portkey abandoned in the middle of the road. Scorpius sighed and followed his father through the gate, up the gravel path, and through the front doors of Malfoy Manor.

 

Scorpius had only been to the Manor twice before. The first time, he had been to young to remember. It had been something to do with blood magic, of marking his name on the Malfoy family tree and ensuring that the line had gone uncontaminated by his foreign-born mother. He only knew this because his house-elf nurse, Twinky, had told him about it years later, when he'd been put in time-out by his father, who had shouted, for some forgotten offense, that Scorpius could be no child of his.

"But you are, Master Scorpius," Twinky whispered to him, "there's no way to fool that magic."

"I wish I wasn't," Scorpius had hissed back.

"Young Master shouldn't go saying things like that." Twinky had shaken her little finger in his face and vanished. Scorpius couldn't remember caring much, especially as his father had disappeared for the next month, meaning that his mother smiled, at least until he came back.

The second time Scorpius had crossed the threshold of his ancestral hold had been only a summer ago, when his Grandmother Malfoy had died. It had not been a happy time. His father had been very pale and drawn and once, Scorpius came around a corner unexpectedly and saw his parents sitting on a couch. His father had his head in his hands and his shoulders were shaking, as if they would never stop. His mother was looking out a window.

Scorpius had turned around very quickly to go back outside. He was chased up a tree by two of the snow-white peacocks that haunted the grounds. He only got down after dark, when they'd drifted off to other avian pursuits.

 

All in all, he didn't like it. The peacocks were huge and bloodthirsty, not like the pigeons that landed on the balcony of his room in Rome, and climbed on top of each other to take crumbs from his hand with their small, sharp beaks. And every room of the Manor had a haunted, expectant feel, as if they had experienced horrors beyond what his eleven-year-old mind could imagine, and were unsure of the permanence of their respite. 

Also, it was in the middle of nowhere. Scorpius had grown up with the rumble of thousands of human beings a day passing beneath his window, and who was never more than a hidden passage away from the visitors who strolled through the Gallery's gilded hallways, found the silence of the Wiltshire countryside unnerving.

Especially when the peacocks were the only things to break the quiet.

He could see one down in the garden from the window of his bedroom. It was stalking up and down a graveled pathway. At every turn it would stop, flare its tail feathers, and then stroll back in the opposite direction, neck arched and beak all but glinting in the weak English sun. Every once in a while it would give a great, piercing shriek.

His father had told him that they would be going to London the next day, to buy his schoolbooks and things. "You'll enjoy Diagon Alley," his father had said over their first supper at Malfoy Manor. The supper had involved a kidney pie; Scorpius, despite having a taste for _tripa alla romana_ , found this quite beyond the pale, and didn't know how he would survive the next seven years on English cooking.

As for Diagon Alley, he didn't see how it could measure up to Via Curva, the wizarding center of Italy. There was a door in the Gallery that opened right onto the street (well--into the marble-coated foyer of a hotel; his mother's family were not for mixing with the hoi polloi), and when he was younger he'd snuck through it a few times, before his parents started putting locks on he couldn't break without magic.

To get to London from Malfoy Manor required a Portkey, a broomstick, or Apparating.

Scorpius sighed, and pulled the curtains closed over the window. He wasn't looking forward to his second Portkey trip in three days; he wasn't looking forward to Hogwarts; he wasn't looking forward to Diagon Alley. He wasn't looking forward to much of anything. 

Except, well, getting a wand, since every witch and wizard his age in Italy already had one--a fact that his cousins and their friends lorded over him, whenever they came to the city for potions ingredients or books. "The English boy doesn't have a wand yet," his cousin Adalberto would tell all of his country friends. "It's because he's _foreign_." Scorpius would want to do something awful to him, but would restrain himself, because Adalberto cast a mean Jelly-Legs Jinx. And also because he was supposed to be a good host to the herds of country bumpkins. Or that was what his mother told him, although he didn't think she cared much what went on outside of her line of vision.

Now, Scorpius supposed he was the country bumpkin, out here on this great empty estate with nothing but the hum of the wind and the shrieking of the peacocks.

 

Scorpius found Diagon Alley to be exactly what he was expecting it to be: dim, dingy, dirty, and dank. Everyone appeared to be bundled up in thick, dark robes, despite the late-summer heat. There was none of the extravagant glitter of the Via Curva, with its harlequined jugglers and witches Transfiguring pebbles from the street into showers of golden coins. His father didn't buy him a new racing broom. His mother got rather sharp with the witch who was supposed to be tailoring his robes. Quite typical.

As expected, the high point of the day was his wand. Scorpius's mother stayed behind at Madame Malkin's to, he believed, stand over the terrorized witch and supervise every stitch she took, so it was only himself and his father. Scorpius spent very little time alone with his father, which he supposed was odd, but he'd never really thought about it before--to be honest, Scorpius didn't spend very much time with anyone. The Gallery's hallways were endless, and while it was easy to duck out amongst the tourists, he didn't talk to them. Nor did he talk to the people who passed his window every day. (He did talk to the pigeons sometimes, but only if he was sure no one but Twinky would be able to hear him.)

"Well," his father said as he pushed open the door to Ollivander's, "here we are."

"Yeah." Scorpius shuffled in.

His father took a breath, as if preparing to tell him to stand up straight and not mumble, but instead he said hello to the ancient-looking man behind the counter.

"Malfoy," the man said. He had an odd voice, dreamy and sleepy, as if he was talking from a very great distance away. "It has been a while."

"Mr. Ollivander, may I present my son?"

Scorpius dutifully went through the how-do-you-dos, but he noticed that Mr. Ollivander never took his milky-looking eyes off of his father. He didn't think Mr. Ollivander liked his father much. After a while Scorpius's father retreated to lean against the only bit of wall that wasn't covered by tall shelves. Mr. Ollivander produced a tape measure and watched it work for a few seconds, before turning to the shelves and plucking down a narrow, dusty box.

"Alder and unicorn hair. Eleven and three-quarter inches. Quite firm--"

"That's an odd combination, isn't it?" Scorpius' father interrupted.

Mr. Ollivander narrowed his eyes. He offered Scorpius the box. Scorpius took out the wand. Immediately he felt something cool spread through his fingers, up his arm. It was bright and light, at odds with the dusty weight of the room. Scorpius gave the wand a flick that he'd seen his mother do before, and a fountain of silvery sparks jetted up towards the ceiling.

"Oh, have I missed it?" his mother cried in her accented English, as she slipped through the door. Some of the sparkles caught in her hair, and spangled the package of robes she held over one arm. She took over the rest of the transaction. Scorpius, fingers still closed tightly around the end of his wand, watched Mr. Ollivander and his father watch each other.

After they left, Scorpius's mother turned to his father with narrowed eyes, and said that she never would have stayed at Madame Malkin's had she known where they were going. His father shrugged and strolled into Eeylops Owl Emporium, without responding. Scorpius thought about how much he didn't know about his father, but followed along quietly enough.

 

After the trip to Diagon Alley, there was only a week until Scorpius was meant to catch the train to Hogwarts. That was how his father always described it: "catching the train to Hogwarts." Not "going away to school," like a handful of his cousins did. "Catching the Hogwarts Express."

Despite his lack of excitement about starting school, Scorpius wasn't sorry when the week was over. He'd spent the entire time reading his schoolbooks, or drifting around the grounds on his broom, toes just out of reach of the deranged peacocks. It was nice to be able to fly wherever he liked; that was the only thing he liked better about the Manor than the Gallery, where he was forced to stay inside the courtyards, chasing Quaffles that Twinky spelled for him.

He even found a tree that he quite liked, out in a secluded corner of the estate where he didn't think anyone but the gardeners ever went. It was a big old tree, with low-hanging branches that were kind to a city-born boy who had never climbed anything other than a staircase. When the stultifying silence in the Manor got to be too much, Scorpius would fly out to the tree, leave his broom on the ground, climb it, and then sit, back pressed up against the rough bark and knees gripping tight to his chosen branch. He always brought his wand with him, although he couldn't use it yet.

Instead he would take it out of his pocket, and roll it between his fingers, dreaming of all the spells he would learn to use: spells to set Adalberto in his place, spells so he could become invisible, spells so that he could, maybe, one day, divine all of the things that his parents weren't saying to each other, or to him.

At last the Morning of the Train (as he'd begun referring to it in his head) arrived. The family Portkeyed to a utility closet in King's Cross, walked out onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and said goodbye to each other. Scorpius felt a squirming sensation deep in his stomach. He hadn't been scared before--he'd been too preoccupied with worrying about the food, about the weather, about the awful scratchy wool robes--but now he was beginning to be. As if sensing this weakness, his mother squeezed his arm, hard enough to hurt.

Scorpius looked up at her. She looked especially beautiful this morning, he thought, with her long golden hair swept up in a twist. She was wearing black robes, he supposed to blend in, but hers floated and moved in a way that the English witches could only dream of. He didn't think there could be another woman in the world more beautiful than her.

Scorpius's father still had on the tightly-pinched expression he'd assumed since the trip to Diagon Alley.

The cherry-red engine gave a long, high whistle.

"Scorpius," his father said quickly, "you may hear things--"

But the conductor had begun yelling that all students must board at once. Scorpius's mother gave him a push. His trunk, enchanted to follow at his heels like the little dogs Roman woman walked down the Via del Corso, trailed him aboard the Hogwarts Express.

Scorpius realized, once he was aboard, that he'd never been on a train before, and that he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He found himself in a long corridor, with curtained compartments opening off of it. Other students, many already wearing their awful black robes, pushed and scrabbled at each other and the doors of the compartments. Trunks and owls and cats were everywhere. Scorpius had thought that the English were supposed to be known for making orderly queues; apparently Adalberto hadn't been talking about Hogwarts students when he'd sneered out that particular jibe.

"Are you looking for somewhere to sit?" a female voice asked him.

Scorpius turned. A tall girl with long, straight reddish-blonde hair was staring down at him. There was a P-shaped badge pinned to her robes. "No, I--"

He was interrupted by several loud boys, with red-and-gold ties, clustering around the girl, calling greetings and asking after her summer and was she still dating someone whose name Scorpius didn't catch. He looked into the compartments nearby. They were all full, or full of upperclassmen. He didn't know what to do.

"If you're still looking," the tall girl said, "I'm sure my idiot cousins still have room in their compartment," she said. "They're so repulsive no one else would want to sit with them. Er, sorry."

Scorpius thought she was probably joking, and anyway he understood about idiotic cousins, and was so grateful to her, in that moment, that he could barely stand. He followed her down the corridor. She finally reached a door, hauled it open, and gestured him in. Three people who looked about his own age were sitting in it: two girls and a boy. The girl by the window had big, curly red hair, and was the only one wearing her school robes. The other girl had nice skin, that reminded Scorpius of the lattes Twinky had brought him in the morning, before he was old enough for real coffee. The boy had black hair and looked as nervous as Scorpius felt.

"Well, that's Albus--but no one calls him that--and Rose, and I don't know you," said the tall girl, who must, Scorpius realized, be a prefect, and therefore responsible for taking care of lost first-years like himself. "I didn't catch your name?"

"I know who he is," the girl named Rose announced. "That's Scorpius Malfoy."

Scorpius narrowed his eyes at her. "How'd you know that?"

She sniffed at him, and turned to look out the window.

"Go on and sit down then," the prefect said, narrowing her eyes at Rose. "I'm Victoire, by the way. Sixth-year prefect in Gryffindor. Come find me if you have any problems. I'll be up at the front."

Cautiously, Scorpius sat next to Albus-but-no-one-calls-him-that. He didn't know what to do after that. He barely talked to anyone his own age at home, much less compartmentfuls of oddly-hostile strangers named Rose in the middle of England.

"What's your name again?" the latte-colored girl asked, after they'd all started at each other for a bit.

"Scorpius," he answered politely. Rose gave another sniff. "Really, what's wrong with my name?"

"Oh, it's not your _name_ ," Rose said to the view out the window, which had changed from King's Cross into a dreary-looking suburb.

"Leave off, Rose." The latte-colored girl rolled her eyes. "Mine's Alexandra, by the way. So d'you know what House you'll be in?"

"No one can really _know_ , can they?" Rose burst out. "It's the Sorting Hat that decides."

"But I mean," Alexandra said, "you know all the Weasleys go into Gryffindor, and so on. And I know I won't be in Hufflepuff."

From what little Scorpius knew about Hogwarts' four houses, he didn't think she'd be in Hufflepuff, either.

"And I mean," she continued, "my dad said he didn't care if I went into Gryffindor or not, but I know he'd be a bit broken-up if I didn't."

"If I'm not in Gryffindor I'll go home," Rose announced.

Next to him, not-Albus moaned and covered his face in his hands. "I just hope I'm anywhere but Slytherin."

Scorpius blinked. "Why?"

Albus shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "It's just--no one wants to be in Slytherin, do they?"

"I do, a bit," Scorpius said. "It's where my dad was. And I like green."

Albus stared at him as though he'd sprouted tentacles from his eyeballs; Scorpius wished he knew why people kept doing that. He knew about his father, and all, but... "Really?" 

"Yes, really. But like she said, it's the Sorting Hat that decides, isn't it?"

Albus shrugged again and scooted back in his seat. "I guess."

After that, Rose and Alexandra resumed control of the conversation. Albus chipped in every once in a while, but mostly they talked about people and places and Quidditch teams that Scorpius didn't know. He did learn that all their parents had been at Hogwarts together, in the same year even. Albus turned out to be Harry Potter's son--Scorpius knew that their fathers had known each other at school, but he'd had no idea that someone in his History of Magic textbook would do something as pedestrian as procreate. All of their parents had been in Gryffindor, as well, although Scorpius hadn't heard of any of them but Harry Potter.

At last Scorpius felt the train slowing. They got off, and he lost track of Alexandra, Rose, and Albus in the crush of black-robed students. He heard a booming, deep voice calling out for the first-year students; but then he saw the thestrals hitched to the carriages.

His mother had been a champion thestral racer when she was young. She had given it up when she married, but still maintained a breeding forest in the Alto Adige mountains. He'd visited it a few times, but not since his Grandmother Malfoy had died, and he could see the them. She had a portrait of her favorite thestral, though, which stood guard behind the chair she did her embroidery in. Scorpius had always thought it liked him.

He approached the one hitched to the nearest carriage. He held out his hand, and the thestral slowly bowed its bony nose to touch his palm. Its ears flicked back and forth, and it ruffled its wings. Scorpius smiled. "You're quite handsome, aren't you?"

"Hey!"

Scorpius turned away from the thestral, leaving one hand on its neck. Its skin felt cool and smooth, not like a living creature at all. Albus Potter was standing there, looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. The thestral whuffled at his hair.

"You can't see it?"

"You _can_?"

"What, it's just a--" Scorpius blinked. He realized that he didn't know the word in English. "Never mind."

"Whatever. We've got to get on the boats. Hagrid sent me to find you."

"Boats? You mean we don't go up in the carriages?"

"Don't you know anything?" Albus asked. He grabbed Scorpius's wrist and towed him over to where all of the other first years were clustered around a huge, silver-bearded man. The man, who introduced himself as the groundskeeper Hagrid, dispatched them all into little boats that were bobbing on the surface of the lake.

Across the water, the castle glittered yellow with reflected candlelight. Scorpius ended up in a boat with Albus and another boy that neither of them knew, but who turned out to be a shell-shocked Muggle-born named Eddie. (Scorpius had never met a Muggle-born wizard before, but he kept this to himself: that was one of the things his mother had told him, the night before the Morning of the Train. She'd come up to his bedroom, still dressed for dinner although it had been hours ago. She hadn't said anything like, "You should be in bed," or "You've big day tomorrow." Instead she said, "There are things that you have been sheltered from, and things that you must know." Twinky had still been scurrying around the room, folding and re-folding Scorpius' clothes with her knobby-knuckled hands. As his mother spoke, Scorpius would look at Twinky every once in a while, but she gave no sign that she could hear anything.)

When the boats came to ground on the pebbly beach under the castle, Albus tripped on his robes and fell face-first into the water. Scorpius hauled him to his feet, soaking wet, and towed him up the stairs along with the other first-years. Albus spluttered something that sounded like "Thank you."

They were met at the doors by a tiny man, shorter than Scorpius himself, although he seemed very old. He introduced himself as Professor Flitwick, the Deputy Headmaster. With a flourish of his wand, glowing purple letters appeared above every first-year's head; he directed them to put themselves in alphabetical order. A great shuffling of black robes commenced. Scorpius ended up separated from Albus by three girls. He didn't recognize anyone else around him, although many of them seemed to know each other at least well enough to chatter nervously about the Sorting. The girl in front of him asked him where he thought he'd be. He said he didn't know. She said that her mother had been in Hufflepuff.

After everyone was in order, the letters vanished and the line walked forward into the Great Hall. Everyone around Scorpius began gasping and ooh-ing and ah-ing as if the enchanted ceiling was the most incredible thing they'd ever seen. He didn't think it was particularly special: there was a ballroom with a similar effect in the Gallery, except that it had a chorus of singing angels and cut-crystal chandeliers rather than floating candles. Its stars would also never dare appear so weak and cloud-covered, but maybe that was a British thing.

The Headmistress, a severe-looking witch in a tartan wrap, stood and made a short speech welcoming the first-year students. Professor Flitwick waved his wand and the Sorting Hat and a wobbly-looking stool appeared at the front of the room. The Sorting Hat sung a song that Scorpius stopped listening to after the first stanza. Instead, he stared out at the long tables full of students. He wondered if they would like him, if they would think he was awful because his father was a Death Eater.

When the Hat had finished, Professor Flitwick called the name of the first student to be Sorted, an Alvarez, Madeira. The Hat sent her to Slytherin. Scorpius wondered if they'd be Housemates.

At last, the girl in front of him (Legat, Bridget) was called. She sat on the stool for the shortest time yet before the Hat called out "RAVENCLAW." So she wouldn't be in her mother's House, Scorpius thought, and then Flitwick was saying "Malfoy, Scorpius." He walked forward, picked up the Hat, and set it on his head. The brim fell down over his eyes. He thought he must look ridiculous.

_Another Malfoy_? asked a voice between his ears. Scorpius realized that the Hat was talking to him. No one had mentioned this. The Hat chuckled. _They don't tend to. Now, Mr. Malfoy, what to do with you?_

_I don't know_ , Scorpius thought. _I wouldn't mind being in Slytherin._.

Slytherin? Well now, I don't think that's the place for you at all.

Why?

Ravenclaw, then? I can see you've got quite the inquisitive streak. And my, my, you've already read all your schoolbooks?

I think I'd get bored, if you don't mind my saying so. I like books and all, but not--all the time.

The Hat chuckled again. _Oh, I know just the place for you, then._

Before you say it, if it's not Slytherin will you tell me why? It's just that I know my father will wonder.

Do you know that you're the first person to ask me that? But it's not my place to tell you. Good luck, Mr. Malfoy, in--here Scorpius felt as though the Hat was taking a deep breath, before shouting out "GRYFFINDOR!"

Scorpius took off the hat and blinked in the light. There was a bit of a shocked feeling to the applause filling the Great Hall. He knew that no member of his father's family had ever been Sorted anywhere but Slytherin. (Except for his great-uncle fifteen-times-removed Sirius Black, who he only knew about because he'd found an unaltered family tree in an obscure listing of Wizarding purebloods, during an exploration of the library at Malfoy Manor.)

Scorpius handed the Hat to Nifong, Prudence, and headed for the Gryffindor table. Victoire, the tall prefect, pulled him down into an empty seat next to her. Scorpius joined in the applause as the Hat proclaimed Prudence a Gryffindor, as well. Owensby, Michelle was sent to Hufflepuff, then Overfield, Quinnie, to Slytherin. Then it was Albus's turn. He sat on the stool for a long time, face screwed up as if he was concentrating hard. Scorpius wondered if he was talking to the Hat as well, and if he was, what it was saying. At last the Hat announced that he was a Gryffindor. The applause from their table was the most enthusiastic that Scorpius had heard yet; Victoire stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave a long whistle, and he thought that his eardrum was going to get blown out.

Albus sat, amidst much back-thumping, next to a wild-looking older boy. They had the same unruly dark hair; he'd mentioned having a brother in Gryffindor on the train, so that was probably him. The older boy caught him staring and raised his eyebrows. Scorpius quickly turned away and asked Victoire who he was, but she was too busy cheering for Thomas, Alexandra, who had just followed her father into Gryffindor.

The last student to join Gryffindor was Wojowski, Edward, the Muggle-born from the boat. (Weasley-Granger, Rose, had been sent to Hufflepuff, looking as though someone had dumped a bucket of badger livers over her head.) After the Sorting had finished, the Headmistress stood and gave another speech, a longer one this time. Then they all sang the school song, which Scorpius thought was a bit dotty. At last food appeared on the tables in front of them. Victoire was busy talking to the students around her, who were all older; they were nice enough, introduced themselves and everything, but seemed more concerned with who had slept with who over summer hols than with getting to know a lowly first-year.

Scorpius didn't mind much. The food was, to his surprise, not bad. He'd also had a long day: he couldn't remember the last time he'd had to talk to so many people. So it was nice to just listen for a bit, to not worry about having to say anything.

He'd gotten so comfortable with being politely ignored that he didn't realize when a sixth-year, who'd said his name was John, was trying to get his attention. "Sorry?"

John smiled. "So, a Malfoy, eh? Afraid you're going to get killed when you get home?"

"No, not particularly." Scorpius blinked. "Is there any reason that you ask?"

"Just, you know. Lot of Slytherin snakiness." He stuck out his tongue and faked hissing.

Scorpius stared at him, not quite knowing how to respond. "It's just a House."

"Just a House? Victoire, did you hear what this one said?"

With that, Scorpius was excluded from the conversation again.

 

What felt like hours later, Scorpius was finally sitting on his bed in Gryffindor Tower. There were five other boys in his year: Eddie, Norman, Orion, Justin, and Albus. All of them were in the tower room, except for Albus, who was down in the common room with his brother James and James's third-year friends.

Scorpius didn't know how he was going to survive seven years of having all of these people around him. They weren't being particularly loud right now, since they were all tired from the long day (or at least Scorpius was, so he assumed everyone else was as well), but he could tell that they would get loud as soon as they got comfortable with each other. Orion and Justin, in particular, looked as though they were going to get on famously.

Scorpius wished he felt as though he was going to get on famously with anyone. He listened to the other boys talk and absently kicked his heels against the side of his bed. He didn't know how to break into their conversation, which was, much like it had been on the train and at dinner, concerned with people and Quidditch teams that he hadn't heard of before. He eyed Eddie and Norman, the two Muggleborns, who shouldn't have heard of any of these things either, but somehow still seemed to be actively participating in the conversation. It didn't seem fair, somehow.

Afterwards, Scorpius never knew why he did it: but suddenly, he was sick of sitting there. He announced that he was going down to the common room--Eddie nodded vaguely at him, but quickly went back to looking enraptured at Justin's description of the Holyhead Harpies--then he picked up his wand, and went.

The red-draped common room was full of older students. Scorpius almost turned around and went back upstairs, but then he saw Albus's mop of dark hair, over in a corner. James had an arm around his neck and was using his other to make a broad gesture at the group of third-years clustered around him. If he'd thought Albus looked happy, Scorpius would have slipped back upstairs; but as it was, Albus looked as out-of-place as Scorpius had felt in the first-years' room.

So he went over. Albus saw him before James did, and smiled. "Hey, Scorpius."

"I was wondering if you wanted to take a walk." Scorpius said this to Albus, specifically, sticking his hands in his pockets while simultaneously trying not to slouch.

"Er, where to?"

"Yeah, where to?" James asked, which was the cue for all of the other third-years to turn and look at Scorpius.

He shrugged.

"You know there's curfew." James had a toothy smile.

Albus removed his brother's arm from around his neck. "Not for another half an hour."

"And Peeves. Remember about Peeves, Al? And the Bloody Baron?"

"We've got ghosts at my house, and they've never bothered me," Scorpius said.

"And those must be some evil ghosts, right?" Scorpius decided that he didn't like James's smile at all.

"Shut it, James." Albus stood up.

"What did you say?" Scorpius asked James.

"Oh, just that any _Malfoy_ ghosts have to be particularly _evil_ because of all the--"

Albus elbowed him in the head. "I said shut it. Let's go."

They climbed out from behind the Fat Lady, who checked that they knew the password (Chocolate Frogs) before she let them go down the hall.

"So everyone calls you Al?" Scorpius asked after a bit. The halls were very quiet, except for the faint snores coming from the portrait frames, and the sound of their footsteps.

"Yeah. I got all the awful names." He wrinkled his nose. "I know Albus Dumbledore is wonderful and all, and so's Severus Snape, but it's just a mouthful. James got the good, normal ones: James Sirius."

"Sirius is my uncle, kind of," Scorpius said. He felt like the stone walls were swallowing up all of his words.

"Sirius Black was your uncle?"

"Yeah, I found a family tree once. One he hadn't been burned off of. He was my grandmother's cousin."

"What d'you mean, 'burned off'?"

They were nearing a fork in the halls. Albus--Al--nudged him left.

"In the old pureblood families," Scorpius said, following Al down a broad, shallow flight of stairs, "if someone does something wrong, they get burned off the family tree. What d'you think's down here, anyway?"

"Wait, you mean people get _burned off_ your family tree?"

"Yeah." Scorpius peered down the gloomy hallway. He lit his wand with a "Lumos" and held it up. A portrait of a black-and-white cat blinked grumpily at him. The cat's neighbor, a rather chunky witch, told him to put the light out. He ignored her--her proportions were all off, and the brushwork was horrific. She wouldn't have got near the walls of the Gallery, not even in the service hallways that only the house-elves used.

"Mental." Al apologized to the witch and tugged Scorpius down the hall. "What could you do that's so awful you get burned away?"

"Uncle Sirius got Sorted into Gryffindor, and did some other stuff too, I think."

"So are you going to get like, erased, too?" Al sounded worried. He'd left his hand above Scorpius's elbow, and squeezed.

"I don't think so. I mean my father didn't say what would happen if I wasn't in Slytherin. I don't think it occurred to him that I wouldn't be." Scorpius let himself feel a little nervous about that for the first time. Every year, the Daily Prophet published the results of the Sorting, and he could remember his father reading the lists at the breakfast table. He would say things like "A Goyle, in Hufflepuff?" or "No surprise, the oldest Potter spawn went to Gryffindor."

It turned out that the hall was a dead end. They decided to head back to Gryffindor Tower. The common room was still full--they hadn't even been gone long enough to break curfew--but Al jogged straight up the stairs, without looking at James. Scorpius followed.

The other first-years were still awake, talking and laughing. Justin had produced a Quaffle from somewhere, and was tossing it back and forth with Orion.

"Where'd you go?" Eddie asked.

Scorpius shrugged and eyed Al, who was putting on his pajamas and digging around in his trunk for a toothbrush. Al's pajamas were light blue and had Snitches on them. Scorpius wouldn't have been caught dead in something like that after the age of seven, but it seemed appropriate on Al.

 

The entire first month of school, Scorpius waited for a letter from his father, concerning the fact that he'd been Sorted into the wrong House. But it never came. Instead, letters written in his mother's hand reminded him to work hard at his classes, and to comport himself appropriately. When his father did write, it was short notes about current events, or to inform Scorpius that he'd be staying in Malfoy Manor for the rest of the school year.

 

One Saturday, Scorpius and Al woke up early to practice Transfiguration. Neither of them were particularly good at it, and Professor Catapult was the sternest teacher that they had. When they went down to breakfast, they were the only ones at the Gryffindor table, and among the first in the Great Hall. A table away, the Ravenclaw Quidditch team had assembled for an early practice, but other than that, they were alone. Without the normal masses of black-robed students and clatter of silverware, the Great Hall felt echoingly empty. It reminded him of the way the ballrooms of the Gallery felt, just before closing time. There would always be a late gaggle of tourists, and Scorpius would stare at them through the gilded scrollwork of the walls, waiting for them to leave.

Scorpius ate a bite of eggs, then wrinkled his nose and shoved the plate away. He buttered a piece of toast instead.

"Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?"

"Not eat anything but toast for breakfast."

Scorpius looked from his toast, to Al's calm green eyes, and back. "It's what I'm used to, I guess," and then he felt all of it spilling out of him: Twinky toasting his bread, skipping out of secret passages to give lost tourists directions to the portrait of Innocent X. Opening his window to look out at the trickles of people walking down Via del Corso in the morning, heads bowed, holding newspapers and dodging the orange-clad street cleaners. How he would stand in front of the portrait that was labeled Saint John the Baptist, but who was really Paris--and how, at the appointed hour, he would stir out of the stillness he held all day, posing with his ram for the tourists, and wink at Scorpius. He'd sit cross-legged in the dark shadows of his frame, with the ram nuzzling at his hair, and Scorpius would try to explain Muggle cameras to him.

Al stared, mouth half-open. Scorpius could see a half-chewed bit of sausage on his tongue. Finally he said, "And I thought _my_ house was weird."

Scorpius took a bite of toast. He felt a little bit miserable. "S'not a house. It's a gallery."

"Exactly." Al kicked his ankle. "You continental freak."

Scorpius forced himself to drink a swallow of the vile tea Al had poured for him. "So why's your house weird then?"

"There are house-elf heads on plaques on the walls."

It was Scorpius's turn to stare. " _Really_?"

Eventually the rest of the Gryffindor first-years filtered down into the Great Hall, yawning and scratching at themselves. Alexandra plonked herself down next to Scorpius and began chattering about the essay Professor Goldstein had given them for Potions. Scorpius forced himself to pay attention, hoping that if he listened long enough he'd figure out what on earth a "bezoar" was. After breakfast all of them trooped out to the lake. Eddie taught him how to skip stones, and Scorpius laughed as the giant squid swatted the pebbles back at them. One hit Orion right in the middle of his forehead, hard enough to draw blood. Al swore he saw a tentacle rise from the water and give what looked like a fist-pump, but Norman, who was a bit stuck on himself, said that was impossible. Justin rolled his eyes and dragged Orion off to Madame Pomfrey.

 

This was how Scorpius Malfoy's first year at Hogwarts went. He never, at any point, stopped missing the Gallery's long halls, or the Roman busts that would wink at him over the tourists' heads. He never developed a taste for sausage at breakfast, or tea, period. He never heard anything from his father about his House, not even over hols, which he spent in silence at Malfoy Manor. And he never learned how to get along with James Potter, who thought he was brilliant because he played Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and because his last name was Potter.

But, by the end of the year, he had gone top of the Charms class, and learned the English word for "thestral," and spent hours wandering up and down Hogwarts' staircases, with or without Al. And despite their inferior quality, Scorpius couldn't help but get friendly with the portraits and the sculptures. This was how he learned, in March, to get to Honeydukes, through the one-eyed witch's hump. (Her name was Irmelda the Intractable, and she had put out her own eye and given herself the hump to avoid being married off to some awful Muggle.) He only went once, though, because he didn't think getting caught was worth having Ice Mice whenever he wanted them. He practiced Quidditch with Justin, Orion, Alexandra, and Al. Scorpius learned that he liked being a Beater, that he was good at it, and several upperclassmen told him he should try out for the Gryffindor team the next year, while James Potter made cutting comments from the back.

Scorpius said he'd think about it, but before he'd even had time to do that, the year was over: he and Al were standing on Platform Nine and Three Quarters with their trunks. They were saying goodbye and wishing each other pleasant summers. Al said to owl him. Scorpius said, "Sure." Then they were being folded back into their respective families, and Scorpius's father still hadn't said anything about him being a Gryffindor, or anything, really, but his mother was saying how tall he'd gotten and how glad Twinky would be to see him. And then the year was over.


	2. Chapter 2

I

Correspondence between Albus Severus Potter   
and Scorpius Hyperion Doria Pamphilj Malfoy  
The Summer before Fourth Year

May 30  
Scorpius,  
I don't know why my mad family decided to go to Patagonia for hols. There's ice everywhere. And no beaches. I don't know whether you're home or at the Manor, but Bruno's a smart owl and I know he'll find you.  
\--Al

 

June 13  
Al,  
You should really take better care of your owl. He was almost dead when he got here--I think he went to Rome first. So obviously I'm at the Manor now...got here from Rome two weeks ago. It's very boring but Father put up an Anti-Detection Aura so I could practice. The assumption is that if a Granger, Weasley, or Potter gets ahead of me in anything he'll disown me. (Sorry, you don't count, since he doesn't think Astronomy and the Herb are real subjects.)

So I mostly try to turn the peacocks funny colors. I got one to go half pink, so he looked like a watermelon. I accidentally lit Twinky on fire, yesterday: I was trying for heatless flames and got it wrong, She's alright though. House-elves are tough.

I'm very sorry Patagonia is awful. Isn't it winter down there? And isn't your father supposed to be brilliant?  
\--S. H. D. P. Malfoy

 

June 24  
S. H. D. P. Malfoy, who are you trying to joke?  
Turns out we came to Patagonia because it's winter, and no one else would be stupid enough to come here, and Mum and Dad were in the mood for a quiet family holiday. It hasn't been too quiet so far, what with the raging ice storms and James howling about frostbite. I'm telling Bruno to stay with you if you don't mind or think the peacocks will eat him. He doesn't like the cold much, although he is a very well-mannered owl and hasn't bitten me at all.

Also I think it's funny that you said I mistreat my owl and you lit your house-elf on fire. That is the difference between me and you, although James has been banging on recently about how I'm a disgrace to the Potter name because I'm owling you. Dad tells him to shut up. Mum hasn't said much. Lily says that James is being quite ridiculous, as she is _in_ Slytherin, unlike you, and therefore she's the one he should be worried about if he's so caught up about "great snakey pillocks."

We're coming back June 15. I am looking forward to the good British sunshine.  
\--Would never sign a letter to a mate A. S. Potter

 

July 15  
Scorpius,  
I am unfrozen! Never thought England's weather would be an improvement on anything.  
\--Al

PS. Give me my owl back. He was a birthday present.

 

July 18  
Al,

Here's your owl. I turned him red, to show you that I can do Color-Switching Charms now. My father says that if you tell your dad about the Anti-Detection Aura that he'll turn you into a Blast Ending Screwd, whatever that is.

I am going home next week. Just for a bit, before term starts. I'll try to bring you back some real coffee, so you will finally understand why I don't like tea. Maybe some gelato as well, if I can work out a charm to keep it cold. You know that Italy doesn't really have laws against underage magic? If you levitate a Muggle (they call them senza-luci there, which means "without light," I think it's because it took so long for them to discover how to use fire without crisping themselves) or something you'll get in trouble, maybe, but mostly if your parents know the right people in the Ministry you can do whatever you want.

I will try to get a tan at my aunt's lake for you. I will think about you while I am lying in the sunshine. Real sunshine, not British sunshine.  
\--Scorpius

 

July 25  
Scorpius,  
I hope you get sun poisoning and choke on some pasta and take off your nose with your unrestricted underage magic.

No one can figure out how to un-charm Bruno.

It's raining. The River Otter is flooding our garden, so Mum's got us out with sandbags. This is the worst summer of my life.  
\--Al

 

August 3  
Al,  
You made your owl fly all the way to Italy for four lines?

I might not look it, but I tan very well. The pasta is delicious. I have not Vanished my nose, although mother did teach me how to Vanish spots. Not that I have any. She just thinks I should learn before I need to know. Not that I will ever have spots.

I used the Bat-Bogey Hex on my cousin Adalberto. Next time he gets near me it's something nastier. He doesn't know that I'm top of Charms in our year, and I'm not going to tell him...  
-S. Malfoy

 

August 12  
Scab,  
You're good at hexes because you're a bloody great Slytherin git and dark magic comes to you naturally. Not because you're tops in Charms.  
-Al

 

August 12  
Scorpius,  
James stole Bruno. I don't think you're a bloody great Slytherin git. (Clearly, you're IN GRYFFINDOR.) But my dad gives you permission to use the Bat-Bogey Hex on James when we see you on the platform. Or maybe you can offer to Vanish his AWFUL OOZING BLOODY PIMPLES and Vanish his brain instead, it's not like he's using it. He's started calling you the Scab as well. I really don't know why. It doesn't sound anything at all like Scorpius.

I'm sorry your cousin is giving you trouble, but obviously I know about difficult relatives. I'm sending some Cockroach Clusters. You can try feeding them to him.  
\--Al

 

August 19  
Al,  
Since I had two owls to send back to you, I gave them some gelato. Did the cooling charm work? Mother's still at my aunt's estate (I got sent back to the Gallery because I spelled all the birds at the lake to attack Adalberto and one almost pecked his eye out; I think she only sent me back because Aunt Crocifissa was watching when I did it, since she doesn't like Adalberto either) and I haven't seen Father in a while because he's staying at the Manor, so I didn't have anyone to check over it other than Twinky. She's good at most things but she doesn't know wand magic. Anyway I sent you almond, because it's my favorite, and coconut, because you like it. Don't let James eat any.

Also I have never seen you write all in capitals before. I am very sorry James is so obnoxious. Adalberto ate the Cockroach Clusters, by the way.  
\--S.

PS. I'm practicing my Furnunculus Curses. I started practicing on the tourists, but then the manager of the Gallery caught me. She tried to take away my wand. I wouldn't let her, but I had to promise to lay off the curses.

 

August 24  
Scorpius,  
IT'S ALMOST SEPTEMBER! I'm excited to be going back to Hogwarts. James and I were getting into so many fights that they sent him to the Burrow to stay with my grandmother. It's been better without him, but also worse, because I don't have anything to do but read my schoolbooks, and since James is gone I don't even have anyone to practice Quidditch with out in the back garden, at least not until Dad gets home from the Auror Bureau. (You know Lily hates sport. And that Mum doesn't like playing anymore, I still dunno why, really.) I think I'm finally going to try out for the team...don't tell James, but Dad says I should stop pretending to be a Chaser and go for Seeker. We'll see...

I know you don't like Scotland much, but it's got to be better than rotting in your great dusty museum for the whole year.

YOU PRACTICED ON THE TOURISTS? Maybe you are a great Slytherin git. They didn't deserve that!

Don't bother writing back, your reply probably won't get here before you. Would you mind bringing Bruno up with you? He's flown enough this summer.  
\--Al

PS. the gelato survived! And was delicious. I kept James from eating any, even though he loves almonds.

I

Scorpius stood on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He was by himself, except for Al's owl Bruno. His mother had kissed him on the forehead in Rome. He could, when he concentrated hard enough, still smell the bergamot and musk of her perfume. He didn't know where his father was.

Scorpius had Portkeyed to Malfoy Manor yesterday morning, from the Gallery. He had shut himself in his room with only his wand, Bruno, and Twinky for company. Twinky was re-packing his trunk for the fifth time. Scorpius was levitating owl treats through the bars of Bruno's cage. It was very calm and pleasant, until his father's house-elf knocked on the door.

There were, he supposed, a lot of things that his father could want to speak to him about: how he persisted in being in Gryffindor House (although his father had never said a word about it, he oozed displeasure every time he saw Scorpius in a red-and-gold tie, or in the Prophet in his Quidditch leathers); how his best friend was the spawn of Harry Potter; or anything, really. His father seeking him out was a rare enough occasion that it had to be important. Usually, when they spoke to each other, it involved passing food at the dinner table, or passing each other by chance in hallways; Scorpius couldn't even remember the last time his father had sought him out, for anything.

Scorpius found himself in his father's study. His father was sipping port out of a cut-crystal glass. The house-elf offered him pumpkin juice, which he declined.

They sat in silence. The clock behind his father's desk was ticking, and there was the clink of his father setting the glass down on the marble-topped table beside him. After a while, Scorpius's father asked him what he thought of his third year.

"It was educational."

They stared at each other, or rather Scorpius's father stared at him and Scorpius stared at the fireplace's empty grate. His father asked if he was looking forward to another year of Quidditch.

"Yes." Scorpius wondered if his father even knew what position he played.

His father asked him if he'd had any trouble. Scorpius said he didn't know what that meant. His father repeated the same question.

Scorpius crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. He stopped looking at the grate and stared straight at his father. "No one's cursed me because you're a Death Eater, if that's what you're after."

His father made an abortive gesture, as if he was reaching for the Mark on his forearm, but he stopped himself. He took another swallow of port. Scorpius wondered how long this was going to last.

It did not last very much longer. His father told him to get to bed. Scorpius was not very surprised that, when he woke up, Twinky handed him a Portkey and told him that Master Malfoy had been called away on business. If his mother had been there, she wouldn't have stood for it; but Scorpius hadn't seen his parents together since they'd picked him up from the Hogwarts Express, after his first year.

 

Back on the platform, he saw the Thomases appear through the barrier. He nodded at Alexandra, who jogged up to him.

"Why've you got Al's owl?"

Scorpius shrugged. "How were your hols?"

"Fantastic, we went to the Bahamas to visit my great-gran." Alexandra went off, the way that she did, and Scorpius breathed a sigh of relief.

He was looking for Al, but he hadn't seen the Potters anywhere. He didn't quite know what to expect from Al, after his last letter: _Maybe you are a great Slytherin git_. Scorpius had no problem with Slytherin--and he hadn't though Al did, either, as it was his sister's house--but he didn't like Al saying that.

Scorpius was willing to acknowledge that he shouldn't have practiced his curses on the tourists. It hadn't been smart, and it hadn't been brave. He probably shouldn't have told Al about it at all, but Adalberto'd had him on edge all summer. The one thing he'd managed to hit Scorpius with, the first day at the lake estate, had been the Burning Charm: Scorpius had been convulsing on the floor of his borrowed room, screaming that the flames were eating him alive, when Twinky had found him. In comparison, the Bat-Bogey Hex and the flock of birds were downright pleasant.

Scorpius didn't even know where Adalberto had gotten the idea to turn a charm for flameless heat into an offensive weapon. He'd been trying to work it out, when he'd accidentally set Twinky on fire. (Real fire, not magical fire. Fortunately real fire was easier to put out.)

"Oh, look, it's the Potters!" Alexandra said. "James is looking rather fit, isn't he?" Alexandra had been mad for James since the first time she'd seen him play Quidditch.

"Don't know why you'd tell me that."

"Shut it." She waved enthusiastically. "They're on their way over," she reported.

"Brilliant."

"What's with you?"

Scorpius shrugged again. Bruno saw Al, and began bouncing up and down, hooting with excitement.

"Hallo there," Al said. James hovered behind him, giving Scorpius death glares. Why wasn't he off with all of his sixth-year henchmen? Scorpius could see Ira Patchett, James' erstwhile sidekick, looking fidgety as his mother kissed his cheek. Meanwhile Al was sticking his fingers through Bruno's cage; Bruno was nibbling at them happily, a picture of avian contentment.

Somehow the three fourth-years managed to end up in a compartment without Scorpius saying a word. (James had given up glaring and gone to join Ira.) Alexandra and Al started swapping stories about their respective holiday destinations. Patagonia sounded horrific; the Bahamas sounded wonderful, especially because Alexandra's great-gran turned out to be the kind of Caribbean witch who made gris-gris and killed roosters. Her father, who was ostensibly Muggle-born, hadn't even known.

"You know," Al finally said, nudging him in the ankle with a scuffed trainer, "you weren't lying when you said you could get a tan."

"What?" Scorpius hadn't been listening.

"You always do that." Al rolled his eyes. "Tune out completely. I _said_ , you did get a tan."

"I told you I would. I'm half Italian."

"Yeah but you're blond. And James says all the Malfoys are pasty."

"How would James know?"

"I dunno, looked up some portraits or something in a textbook."

Alexandra said she was going to the loo.

Scorpius sighed. "So am I going to have to hex him?"

"Probably not. Dad gave him a pretty serious talking-to before we came to the station."

Scorpius might have told Al about the talking-to his own father had attempted to have with him, but Orion Balmaceda, Justin Hawkins, and Eddie Wojowski chose that moment to appear. Al trotted out the Patagonia story again. The witch with the confectionary cart came around. Alexandra came back from the loo. They arrived at Hogwarts and Scorpius took his time with the thestrals, before Al dragged him inside a carriage.

Somehow James and Ira ended up in their carriage, bursting in the door just as the thestral started moving. James crossed his arms over his chest and stretched out his legs. Al kicked him in the shin, glaring. Scorpius wasn't happy to see James, either, but he'd missed seeing Ira over the summer, a bit--he'd never understood how Ira was always so nice to everyone at Hogwarts, since he was somehow best friends with James Potter, who was never nice to anyone.

"I hear you're going for Quidditch this year, Al," Ira said, as the carriage was nearing the castle. Scorpius thought he was the best Chaser they had, even though their captain, Paul Clearwater, got all the attention.

"Yeah, I think so." 

"Little brother's growing up so much," James said, with mock emotion.

"You play Chaser, right?" Ira asked.

"Er," said Al, looking massively guilty.

"Yeah, he's a Chaser," James said, not appearing to notice how cagey Al had gone. "Should be some tough competition for him this year...all the second-years trying out..."

Al growled and kicked James again. "Don't be an arse."

"And what about you, Malfoy? Quirk's gone and graduated, so it looks like you won't have a real Beater to hide behind anymore."

Scorpius gritted his teeth. He liked Ira well enough, but he wasn't worth having to put up with James. When they got into the Great Hall, he made sure they sat at the opposite end of the table from James and Ira.

"This is the year all your cousins are getting here, right?" Justin asked Al, from across the table.

Al rolled his eyes. "What d'you mean, 'all my cousins'? I've already got about a million here. Dominique's in seventh year, Molly's in fifth, Hugo's in second, then there's Rose over in Hufflepuff..."

Justin laughed. "All those Weasleys. The jokes really make themselves, don't they?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know. But how many are being sorted this year? Eleven?"

Scorpius glanced up at the line of first-years standing at the front of the Great Hall. He counted red heads. "Three, is it?"

Al sighed and thunked his head down on the table. "Yeah. Louis, Fred, and Lucy. And I'll bet you a Galleon they're all in Gryffindor."

"I'll take that bet," Justin said. "Rose and Lily went to other Houses, didn't they? And the Sorting Hat can't put what, nine relatives in the same House, all at the same time."

"You don't know Louis, Fred, and Lucy. I feel bad for whoever the Prefects are this year."

By the time the Sorting was over, Al was a Galleon richer and Gryffindor had acquired three more Weasleys. Justin was shaking his head and saying how mad the world was. Scorpius was inclined to agree. Whenever he tried to imagine growing up as a member of the Potter-Weasley-Granger horde, all he could think of was screaming, mud, chaos, and James putting toads in his cousins' beds.

 

The Gryffindor Quidditch trials were the first Saturday of the year. The day dawned bright and breezy. Scorpius squinted out the window. His father had bought him a Lightning Rod 8 as a birthday gift, over the summer. There'd been a bit of a commotion when he'd taken it out for the first time, since LR8s weren't supposed to be commercially available for another month. Scorpius still couldn't figure out why his father had gone to the trouble to get it for him, since Merlin knew Malfoy _père_ had no interest in furthering the cause of Go On You Gryffs. But despite that, Scorpius was glad to have it, instead of the Firebolt 3.4 he'd been riding since his second year.

He left the window and pulled the broom out from under his bed. His father might go apoplectic if he saw where Scorpius had been keeping it, but it wouldn't fit in his trunk and Quidditch lockers wouldn't be assigned until after the trials.

Al's bed was empty and unmade, and the bathroom was empty as well, so Scorpius figured he must be on the pitch already. But when he got to the common room, broom over his shoulder, Al was sitting on the back of a couch, nibbling at an apple. He was kicking his heel restively against the worn upholstery.

"Took you long enough," he said.

Scorpius shrugged. "I'm not in any particular rush."

"Everyone else has gone down to the pitch already."

"Why didn't you?"

"James keeps telling me how tough competition is going to be for Chaser."

"He still doesn't know, then."

"Er, no."

"That'll be awkward." Scorpius shook his head. "I'll be sure to be somewhere else whenever he figures out you're trying for Seeker."

"Great bloody friend you are."

"I try." Scorpius swung open the Fat Lady. "You coming or not?"

Al sighed. "I guess there's no point putting it off."

"And anyway," Scorpius pointed out, "you might not even get it. James does win games."

"No, I'll get it. Dad knows Seekers, and he says I'm better."

"I guess the Great Harry Potter would know."

Al had gone green. "I kind of hope he doesn't."

"Best to get it over with, then." Scorpius clapped him on the shoulder, and led the way out of the castle. Al looked progressively more nauseous as they neared the pitch, until Scorpius found himself saying that he really shouldn't have cursed the Muggles over the summer, just to try and distract him from the upcoming Potter vs. Potter Battle Royale. He started to explain about Adalberto and the Burning Charm, but then he stopped.

Al gave him a tight little smile in response. All he said was that Scorpius knew what he'd done.

Then they were at the Quidditch pitch. There was a sizeable knot of people gathered around Paul, the captain. They were mostly younger years--Scorpius recognized Hugo Granger-Weasley among them, who Al said had the makings of a decent Keeper--with a few fifth- or sixth-years grabbing at a last chance to make the team.

Scorpius went over to stand with the first-team, who were wearing Gryffindor scarlet, and the reserves. They all had to try out again, but it was rare that someone didn't make it back on.

Paul announced that the Chasers would be trying out first, followed by the Keepers, Beaters, and Seekers. Scorpius nodded at Al as all the Chasers mounted their brooms. James was looking from Al, who was still on the ground, to the clutch of Chasers rising into the sky, and back to Al. He edged over towards Scorpius, the rising wind whipping around his dark auburn hair. Scorpius noticed that he had a dusting of summer freckles over his nose, patchy stubble along his jaw line, and none of the oozing bloody pimples that Al had written him about.

"Did you convince Al to try for Beater or something?" James asked him.

"No."

"I know he's slow, but he can't have missed Paul calling for the Chasers."

Scorpius shrugged, trying to kill Al with his mind. He was not going to be the one to break this news to James. He just-- _was not_.

"He's a pants Keeper," James said. "Always lets in loads whenever he plays that, with the cousins. Hugo has a better chance of getting past Cara Boot than he does."

Scorpius moved his broom from his left shoulder, to his right, not looking at James.

"Wait." James had a horrible expression of dawning realization. "He isn't."

"Isn't what?" Scorpius looked up at the Chasers, who were working through a set of warm-up drills. The cloaks of the two returning first-teamers, Paul and Ira, streamed out like red banners against the September sky.

"He wouldn't dare."

"Potter, if you can't articulate a conclusion--"

"You had better tell me he isn't trying for Seeker."

"I'm not telling you anything."

"Malfoy, I'm warning you--"

"Go ask him yourself." Scorpius tossed his head, and looked James straight in his angry hazel eyes. "But don't blame me, if you hear something you don't want to."

James snarled, and roared off towards the remaining prospective Quidditch players. What followed was not very sportsmanlike, or indeed very pretty to watch: he and Al proceeded to have a screaming row, at a volume and intensity that Scorpius didn't know the mild-mannered Al was capable of achieving. It only ended when Paul threatened to chuck James off the team and keep Al from trying out at all. He turned running of the Chaser and Keeper tryouts over to Ira, ordered Scorpius to deal with the Beaters, and announced that he'd be handling the Seekers himself. (Which, after that little outburst, was only Al and James.)

The two of them were still flying after all the rest of the trials had finished. Scorpius had no great faith in Gryffindor's reserve Beater, a troll-shouldered seventh-year named Hera Boosalis, but nothing better had turned up in the younger years--maybe Paul would try to transition one of the rejected Keepers or Chasers into the position.

"What's taking so long?" he asked Ira. Everyone had flown up into the stands, to watch the unprecedented competition for Seeker. It had been expected that Gryffindor would pick up a reserve Seeker, but no one (other than Scorpius) had guessed that there'd be an outright battle for the first-team position.

"Paul told 'em best two out of three Snitch catches gets Seeker." Ira's feet were propped up on the back of the seat in front of him, and he appeared completely unbothered by the unfolding spectacle. "Al got the first one in about a minute, so James needs to catch this one to have a chance."

Scorpius sat down next to him. It was past noon, and the crowd had swollen to fill almost a quarter of the stands, by the time the brothers went into a long, final dive. Al was the one to pull out of it with his fist raised, the wings of the Golden Snitch beating against his knuckles.

 

The atmosphere in the Common Room that night was odd. Alexandra, who'd been promoted from reserve Chaser to the first team, was in a festive mood, and kept sloshing butterbeer on people she was trying to hug, including Scorpius; and with what was either her customary obliviousness, or a moderate level of inebriation, was attempting to start a party. Some of the new members of the reserves were swilling butterbeer along with her, as was Ira, who was always ready for a drink or seven.

But the rest of the House seemed not to know quite how to respond. Normally, the discovery of a new Seeker was a cause to celebrate. In this case, however, the new Seeker was trying to hide, in order to prevent the old Seeker from coming at him with an Unforgiveable.

Or at anyone else who crossed his path.

Scorpius would have left already, but Al seemed to think that leaving the common room before James would signify a moral defeat. And Scorpius, for better or worse, took being his best mate seriously, so he was sticking it out as long as Al thought necessary. Even if Al was trying to hide behind a curtain. He kept asking if he'd done the right thing by trying out, if maybe he should have gone for Chaser after all; Scorpius kept reassuring him that no, in fact, James was just a bad loser, in addition to being an all-around prat.

Around ten, Al finally decided that he'd had enough. "Want to go for a walk?"

"Yeah, sure."

They headed down towards the kitchens, for lack of anyplace better to go. Al had learned where they were from his Uncle George in second year, and they'd been regular visitors ever since. Scorpius, though he wouldn't admit it to Al or anybody else, liked seeing all the house-elves. They reminded him of home, even if neither the Gallery nor the Manor ever had more than five or six at a time. And they were such interesting little creatures. Quite powerful, which not too many people seemed to remember from the Second War.

The kitchens were near the Hufflepuff common room, but even so, Scorpius was surprised to see Rose Granger-Weasley step out from around a corner. Her eyes were a bit red and her mass of curly hair was more disheveled than it usually looked, even before Friday morning double Potions.

"Rose?" Al asked, stepping closer to his cousin.

She shook her head. "What are you doing down here, anyway? It's well after curfew!"

It was amazing how fast she could go from looking close to tears, to looking as though she was about to yell for Filch. The caretaker's joints weren't what they had once been, but he was still unpleasant enough that Scorpius peered nervously down the corridors. Usually the artwork would tell him if Filch or Peeves were nearby, but the paintings around Hufflepuff were a bit more law-abiding than the ones in Gryffindor Tower. And he didn't want to know what his mother would say, if he ever got a detention.

"You're breaking curfew too," Al pointed out.

"Oh, I'm so near my common room it doesn't matter," she snapped. "Not like you two." When she directed her glare at him, Scorpius felt his hostility level (which had been getting lower, the longer James was out of his sight) begin to rise again. After the train first year, Rose had never been outright rude to him, the way James was on a daily basis, but she was still a bit, well, unpleasant. There was something about the way she sat behind him in Transfiguration and glared at him, as if that alone would be enough to turn her hedgehog into a pincushion. She was the best in their year at Transfiguration anyway, Scorpius didn't see what she was so tense about. Except that he was friends with Al, which broke some unwritten code of Potter-Weasley-Granger conduct.

"Bet Filch'd disagree," he said.

"Look, Rose," Al broke in, "we're headed to the kitchens to get some food, want to come? It's no good standing out here, Filch'll come by eventually and I don't want to get detention."

"Fine," Rose snapped, after a long moment. Scorpius wondered why she hadn't just gone back to Hufflepuff, if she was so anxious about her precious curfew.

The three of them trooped down the hallway until they came to a large still life of a bowl of fruit. Al reached out and tickled a pear, which giggled before turning into a door handle. Al pulled the painting open and gestured Rose and Scorpius through.

The Hogwarts kitchens were huge, bigger than the ones at either at the Gallery or the Manor. (Not that he spent much time in their kitchens.) The small army of house elves was doing prep work for breakfast the next day--looked like there'd be a lot of sausages and bacon. Since arriving in England, Scorpius had gotten himself to the point that he could handle more than toast or a pastry for breakfast, but the thought of digging into a full spread at eight in the morning still turned his stomach.

"You been in here before?" Al asked Rose, after a gaggle of house-elves had scurried off to fetch them tea (Scorpius gritted his teeth) and snacks.

"No." She had her arms crossed over her chest, and was narrowing her eyes at all the house-elves. "Mum says it's slavery."

The pack of house-elves reappeared, bearing a platter full of pear tarts, a cafe table, three chairs, a tablecloth, a plate of ham sandwiches, and a silver tea service. They sat down, and the house-elves bowed away.

"So Malfoy," Rose said, "I imagine you had quite a few house-elves growing up. Treated them well, I hope? Gave them vacations and all?"

"No, as they wouldn't want vacations." Scorpius nudged his teacup towards Al. "They enjoy working."

"My house had an elf," Al announced, as if this was news. "But he died, and Mum and Dad decided they didn't want another one." He didn't add that this was because Hermione Granger would have sent them to join Kreacher on the other side of the Veil if they had, which he'd told Scorpius ages ago. Either way, Al seemed to be shaking off the ill effects of the day, probably as James wasn't across the room, mouthing _Crucio_ at him.

"Because they'd be supporting _slavery_."

"Doesn't look like it's stopping you from eating the tarts," Scorpius pointed out.

He chewed on a sandwich. The crusts were cut off, just the way Twinky did. Al and Rose started bickering about whether house-elves were enslaved or not. He wondered what the elves here would say, if they asked them; he'd put the question to Twinky once, when he was too little to understand the difference between an elf and a wizard. He'd wanted to know if she ever got tired of making beds and picking up his toys. She'd said that no, she didn't, that it brought her joy and that was the way she was made. In retrospect Scorpius thought she would have given a different answer to his mother, but it had been enough for him then, and it was enough for him now.

"So Rose," he asked, once the house-elves hovering just out of earshot (for a human; their hearing was much more powerful) had started looking truly uncomfortable, "why were you out past curfew?"

Rose choked on her tea. Scorpius wrinkled his nose and pushed his own cup further towards Al. Vile brew.

"I don't have to tell you that," she snapped, which she did a lot.

Al kicked him under the table and mouthed "leave it," which Rose fortunately did not see.

"Sorry for asking then."

They finished off as many of the tarts and sandwiches as they could; Al downed Scorpius's tea; the house-elves packed up the rest; and it was time to go. Shortly after Rose had turned in the direction that led to the Hufflepuff common room, Scorpius nearly walked right out in front of Peeves, who was clanging spitballs off the suits of armors' visors. Al grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him back around the corner. They huddled together behind a tapestry of Wulfric the Wandering until they heard Peeves zoom off, trailing the sound of crashing armor behind him. "Close," Al mouthed at him, and they returned to Gryffindor in silence.

Some time after they'd left, Alexandra's tipsiness and Ira's geniality appeared to have won over Gryffindor House. Several bottles of Firewhiskey and a half-empty cauldron of Put-Out Punch were sitting on the table in front of the fireplace. Ira was shooting off Weasley fireworks, so the room was filled with a drifting, sparky haze. James was in a corner snogging Maureen Hornby, a fifth year would-be Chaser. Presumably, he was attempting to console her for failing to get anywhere near the reserves.

"That's foul," Al muttered. "Right out in public like that."

"There's a charm called Noli Me Tangere, that my mother uses in the streets, whenever there's a crowd--it's supposed to keep you eleven inches away from every other human."

"Huh." Al looked from James, to Scorpius, and then back. "You can do it, right?"

"Never tried before." Scorpius squinted and raised his wand. "But I'm game, if you don't mind James coming out with donkey ears if I get the wand movement wrong."

"Think that'd have about the same effect."

Scorpius flicked his wand at James and said the incantation. It looked as though nothing had happened for a moment, but then Maureen squawked and started levitating. She lifted off of James's lap and then hovered there, flailing at him in much the same way that she had flailed at the Quaffle that morning. James looked baffled as her hands bounced off of the air in front of him.

"Come on," Al hissed, "before he sees. Merlin knows that's the last thing I need." He grabbed Scorpius's wrist and dragged him up the staircase. The last thing that Scorpius saw in the common room was James's face, cheeks flushed, and hair more ruffled than it usually was. A few Weasley sparks had settled in his hair. He looked a bit like a Caravaggio, between the flush and his mouth looking fuller and more red than Scorpius had ever seen it.

When they were brushing their teeth, Al spat out his toothpaste and squinted at Scorpius in the wavy, silver-spotted mirror. "Wish I could do charms right the first time I try 'em."

Scorpius spit. "I can practice over the summers." He didn't say _I practice over the summers because I don't have anything else to do, and because it's hard to go from having real friends to having paintings and a house-elf and a horrific cousin._

Al rinsed his toothbrush and started grousing about the Anti-Detection Aura at Malfoy Manor, and the general lack of restrictions on underage magic in Italy. Scorpius half-listened as he finished brushing his teeth.

"Hey," he cut in when Al had taken a breath from pillorying centuries of Italian legal precedent, "d'you know why Weasley-Granger was so upset?"

"Er."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow.

"Well," Al squirmed, "she doesn't like Hufflepuff much, does she?"

Scorpius blinked. The thought that someone might dislike the House that they were sorted into had never crossed his mind. Well, maybe at first, but by fourth year? That just seemed--ludicrous. He liked Gryffindor well enough, didn't he? And if the Hat had managed to figure that out, he was pretty sure it could confidently put Rose Weasley-Granger in with all the badgers.

"She's been in it for three years, though."

"It's probably less Hufflepuff itself at this point." Al hopped up and sat on the edge of the sink, kicking his bare, bony-ankled feet back and forth. His pajama pants were getting too short for him. "But, well, everyone expected her to go into Gryffindor, didn't they? Her mum, her dad, all the aunts and uncles and grandparents--the Weasleys are as much for Gryffindor as your lot are for Slytherin. And with all the baby cousins going into Gryffindor this year--"

"I wouldn't think the Hufflepuffs would be unpleasant about it."

"No, it's not that. Rose, well, she's used to doing everything perfectly. Ever since we were little." Al quirked a smile at him. "Dad says she's a lot like Aunt Hermione was at her age. But, well, I think she rather feels like she's--failed by getting Sorted into Hufflepuff."

"That's...illogical."

"I didn't say I thought it made sense. But then, I'm in the right House, aren't I?"

"There is no such thing as a right House."

"Hasn't your dad ever--?"

"Not a word." Scorpius shoved his toothbrush back into his little bucket, but lingered on the cold tiles of the bathroom. Norman Barnabas, the designated social reject of their year, was asleep, so this conversation would end when they left the bathroom. (Unless they sat on the stairs, to get tripped over by a drunken James as he fumbled up to bed, cursing whatever force had repelled Maureen Hornby from his embrace.)

Al fiddled with his toothbrush. He always left his bucket in his trunk, and stole Scorpius's toothpaste. "But don't you think some Houses are better?"

"Not really." Scorpius shrugged. "I told you I wanted to be in Slytherin, right? And most everyone else in Gryffindor would rather snap their wands than go there."

"I told it if it put me in Slytherin I'd be miserable," Al said.

"Did it want to?"

"Yes, actually." Al quirked a smile at him. "It told me I'd do the most there."

" _You_? In Slytherin?" Al was one of the all-round kindest people in their year (as long as James wasn't put in the equation) and Scorpius didn't believe that just because they were mates. He also couldn't lie. He got all guilty-looking and stammered. And while Scorpius thought there were some perfectly nice people in Slytherin, every one of them could lie about their homework with a straight face. 

Al shrugged. "I told it I didn't want to go."

"What on earth are you two going on about in here?" a bleary-sounding voice asked from the doorway. It was Norman. "I can't get back to sleep with all that racket." He sounded like a grumpy old man. Even looked like one, in his blue pinstriped pajamas.

"Sorry," Al said quickly, "I didn't know we were being so loud." He hurried towards the door, Scorpius trailing behind.

"Really, it's after midnight," Norman sniffed, as Scorpius was climbing into bed. "What do you even _do_?"

They had beds next to each other. Scorpius wondered how he had gotten so lucky; apparently whatever configuration the house-elves placed the trunks in first year, that was the way the beds stayed for seven years. "There's a party down in the common room, in case you missed all the sociability and the noise."

"Good night, Norman," Al called from across the room, in a shut-it-Scorpius kind of way.

Scorpius flicked his wand at the heavy brocade curtains around his bed, and they fell shut with a quiet rustle. He thought he heard a muffled "Good night all" from Norman, but he turned his face into his pillow, and was asleep before he knew it.


	3. Chapter 3

II

Two weeks after the Quidditch trials, Scorpius went down to the Great Hall early to finish an essay on Porlocks for Care Of. He was just writing his conclusion, while a knife buttered him a piece of toast, when Ira appeared. There was a group of seventh-years at the far end of the table--they had a vicious Transfiguration practical--but aside from them, he and Ira were the only people at breakfast. 

"Are you aware," Ira said, bypassing the seventh years to thump down next to him, "how catastrophic our Quidditch team is?"

Scorpius nodded. This was not something that a lot of people were saying, as a "catastrophic" season for Gryffindor Quidditch was still flying at a higher altitude than, say, Hufflepuff, could ever aspire to. But still. The image of Hera Boosalis swinging at Bludgers, and completely missing, had become so ingrained in his daily life that it had begun invading his nightmares as well.

"Like, mate. It's really bad."

"I know."

Ira picked a sausage off a platter and started knawing on it. "That's why I like you. Anyone else would have said some bullshit like 'but the Chasers are so good' and 'at least you've got your Keeper and half your Beaters back.' But not you."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow at Ira's lack of table manners, which he didn't notice. "Thanks."

"And James is acting like a right twat."

Scorpius raised the other eyebrow. He bit off a corner of his piece of toast.

"Well, he is. I'm a realist. He's in a bit of a sulk."

As Scorpius didn't have another eyebrow to raise, he settled for saying that "sulking" didn't constitute threatening to curse your brother and/or the team's Seeker out of the sky; flatly refusing to consider yourself a "reserve"; or casting _Densaugeo_ on a second-year reserve Keeper (who happened to be your cousin) who pointed out that you'd been fairly beaten.

"Fine. He's in a towering rage. And it's throwing the whole team off."

"Yeah."

"I mean, Alexandra's coming along, we'll be fine for scoring points. And no offense to Jamesy, but Al really is better than he is."

"I know." Scorpius couldn't resist.

"But James is a problem, as long as he's not on the first team, right?"

"He's not my problem."

Ira grinned, in a manner that was less with the jocularity, and more with the baring of teeth. "But see, it is. As we are in the business of winning Quidditch cups round this House. And you are a part of that."

Scorpius took another bite of his toast, and had a swallow of orange juice, which tasted less like oranges than Italian orange juice. He didn't know why Ira was telling him all of this. James Potter's bruised ego was not keeping him up nights.

"So. Paul and I had a little chat."

"Oh?"

Ira nodded. He finished off the sausage and started on another. Around bites, he said, "So we're going to try James out as the other Beater."

"No you aren't," Scorpius answered.

"But see, it's the perfect solution, yeah? Gets him back on the first team, so he'll stop pratting around making the babies cry. He's got the reflexes for it, and he could stand to work off some aggression on those Bludgers."

"No."

Ira gave him a pitying look. "It's been decided, Malfoy."

"But--" Scorpius struggled to put the seething miasma of hatred that he felt every time he saw James Potter into words. As he was not used to vocalizing his feelings, this was not easy. "But we don't--"

"You will learn to play nice."

Scorpius grasped at the only straw he could think of. "Has he agreed yet?"

"He will. And you two will learn to play nice. Or you'll be responsible for the first losing Gryffindor Quidditch season since I've been at the Hog."

With that, Ira flashed him another grin, and floated off to heckle the seventh-years at the opposite end of the table.

Scorpius was still staring at his toast in shock when Al and the rest of the fourth-years showed up. "What's wrong with you?" Norman asked. Within seconds of sitting down, he had gotten egg yolk on his tie. Scorpius declined to call it to his attention.

"Quidditch."

Norman rolled his eyes. He liked to pretend he thought Quidditch was stupid, as he wants pants at flying and didn't have anyone to sit with at games.

"What?" Al asked. "You look like Rose beat you on a Charms exam."

"I'd rather that had happened."

"D'you need to go to the hospital wing, then?"

"Maybe. Take it you haven't heard, then." Scorpius closed his eyes, took a fortifying breath, and announced the news. Al dropped a cup of tea on himself, then toppled backwards off the bench as he tried to cast a Cooling Charm on his lap.

 

This was a more coordinated display than Scorpius and James managed at practice that night. James had banged into the locker room, looking murderous, and then stomped out onto the pitch without speaking to anyone. He didn't even take a bat with him.

Scorpius grit his teeth, got a spare bat out of the closet when Paul told him to, and followed him onto the pitch. James was already flying, doing laps high above the stands.

Paul tapped his wand on his throat and said " _Sonorous_ ," followed by " _Potter get down here_!"

Scorpius crossed his arms as James landed. They glared at each other until Paul told him to give James the extra bat, and get on their brooms. Then he let loose a Bludger. In a show of good taste, it aimed itself straight at James's nose. He got the bat in the way of it, but barely, and not hard enough to get it directed at another target.

Scorpius snorted as the Bludger redirected itself towards James's solar plexus. James misjudged, didn't get to it in time, and then yowled a curse as it bludged the wind out of him.

" _Malfoy! Get the Bludger out of there_!" Paul roared from the ground, as James bent over his broom, wheezing and trying to get his breath back.  
\  
Scorpius flew in and knocked the Bludger off towards the Forbidden Forest. Bludgers, he'd found, were like magical creatures: if you approached them from a position of calm and strength, they generally did what you wanted them to do. So in his expert opinion, James was doomed, as he was neither calm nor strong (at least not mentally; he did have some muscle on him, more than a Seeker would ever need).

Over the course of the practice, James got bludged two more times. Scorpius would, grudgingly, admit that he hit the Bludgers at least as often as Hera did, but he tended to wildly misdirect them, so that they posed as much of a threat to his teammates, as they did to the opposing players.

"Potter!" he yelled at one point, from across the pitch, "you're not supposed to hit it at your own Chaser!" James had just knocked a Bludger at Alexandra and she'd had to go into a steep dive to avoid it, ruining what would have been a scoring run.

"If you'd pay more attention," James shouted back, "I wouldn't have to be doing everything!"

Scorpius bit down a retort. The idea that James was doing _everything_ was, simply put, ridiculous; he could barely stay on his own broom and swing the bat at the same time. But that was the way he was--blame everything on someone else, as nothing could be James Sirius I Don't Even Have to Say My Father is Harry Potter's fault.

 

As bad as the first practice had been, they got progressively worse. James--and it killed Scorpius to admit this, but he wasn't a delusional idiot like James, so admit it he would--turned out to have the makings of a decent Beater. Although he suffered from occasional lapses in sanity due to the fact that he couldn't keep his temper, and also because he didn't have a mind.

The problem was that they couldn't play together. The more confident James got with being a Beater, the more he started telling Scorpius how to fly; and Scorpius, although he was never going to shout back, because he was a Doria Pamphilj and a Malfoy, and therefore had dignity, didn't take well to being ordered around like a house-elf.

So he ignored James, shouts and hexes and thrown bats and all, and flew as he liked.

 

"We're screwed," Al said, collapsing into an armchair in the Common Room after a dismal practice, followed by a diatribe from Paul that had practically stripped the red paint off the lockers. Scorpius disliked swearing; he thought it was plebian, but Paul (and everyone else in Hogwarts, Al included) seemed to disagree.

"You're not," Scorpius pointed out, sitting in the chair next to him and opening _The Standard Book of Spells Grade 4_. "You are quite brilliant."

"Thanks."

"It's James that, well."

Al wrinkled his nose, as if James was the odor emanating from the compost heap out by Greenhouse 2. "Why are you even looking at that bloody book? You have it memorized."

Scorpius shut it with a snap. "You're right. Might as well do Muggle Studies, joke of a class that it is." He'd decided to take Muggle Studies this year, because he thought Muggles were interesting, but also because a small part of him had hoped to--well, not to _provoke_ his father, because that wasn't the kind of thing Scorpius did, but to-- _encourage_ a reaction. Any kind of reaction. Of course it hadn't. When his schedule had been flown to the Manor by a school owl, his father had read it without comment, or even the flicker of a white-gold brow.

"What's she got you doing this week?"

"Supermarkets." He was supposed to interview a Muggle-born student about "the position of supermarkets & food consumption in the Muggle cultural landscape," then report back eleven inches. "You seen Norman about anywhere? He looks like he's spent a bit of time in one."

Al pulled a face, to indicate he didn't approve of Scorpius making digs about Norman's weight, but said he thought Norman was in the library with Eddie.

"Why're you looking for a Muggle, Malfoy?" James asked him. "Need someone to practice your Dark Magic on?"

Scorpius took a fortifying breath, and acted as if James had not spoken. "Al, I'm going down to the library, then."

He collected his books, while noise continued to emanate from James's mouth, increasing in volume the longer Scorpius ignored him. Al told him to lay off, leading to an even sharper jump in volubility. Scorpius picked up his bag and walked out the Fat Lady, shutting her in James's face.

"Dear, be a bit more gentle, please," she admonished, then let out a squeak of protest as James slammed through her.

Scorpius kept walking, while James kept yelling. Portraits came to the front of their frames to see what all the ruckus was about; Sir Cadogan, who had set off on a quest from his current home on the third-floor hall, commenced to waving his sword and shouting about rogues. Scorpius concentrated on taking deep, calming breaths as he walked down the stairs: one breath in as his right foot stepped down, one breath out as his left foot followed it.

James caught up with him at the landing halfway down the staircase. His cheeks were flushed, and his hair was a mess, Scorpius noted with detachment. Shame James couldn't keep better control of himself. That was something that his mother had impressed onto him, from the time he was five years old and sobbing, because he'd made his father a drawing of a snake and his father hadn't even looked at it: allowing emotion to overtake you was the mark of weakness, of a common hedge-wizard. And you gave things away when you were angry. You let things out that should never be seen.

"And anyway," James was continuing, "you're a pants Beater, it's a wonder Quirk would play with you, unless you were beating something else as well, bet you'd like that--"

"James," said Scorpius, quietly, into the spaces between his words, "shut your mouth." He reached up with one finger, and put it against James's lips, to hush him.

James went as quiet as if Scorpius had cast a Silencing Charm. His eyes were open wide, and Scorpius noticed that he had very long eyelashes, and a rim of gold around his irises, that shaded out into green.

When he was sure James was finished, Scorpius removed his hand, and went to the library. Norman told him about shopping carts and tills and the sweets aisle, and how strawberries were flown over the ocean in airplanes, so that Muggles could eat them in the wintertime.

 

James seemed subdued at practice the next day, in that he only yelled at Scorpius three or four times, and didn't try to hex Rhys Brannigan when they collided in the middle of the pitch. Maybe he'd learned something, on the landing.

But then, Scorpius reflected, as he, Al, and Alexandra were hiking back up towards the castle, he was still James Potter, reigning king of the prats. It was only a matter of time until he reverted to type.

"Blast," Al said, startling Scorpius back to the long, grassy hill, "left my Arithmancy book down in the lockers. See you two back in the Common Room, yeah?"

"Bye," Alexandra told Al's retreating back.

They walked for a few steps, until Alexandra touched his arm. "Hey, have you seen the Venomous Tentacula since it started blooming?"

"Er, no."

"Quinnie Overfield over in Slytherin told me they only bloom once every ten years. Want to go give it a look?"

"Not really," Scorpius said. He got all the Herb he needed during class. More than, to be honest. "I'm sure Al'd go, though."

"Oh, come on." She was touching him again. "Please? It's just around the corner."

Scorpius sighed and followed her towards the greenhouses. While they walked, Alexandra rambled about Quidditch, and their upcoming double Potions lesson. Professor Goldstein was having them prepare a Wit-Sharpening Potion; the Potions hallway had smelled of ginger all week.

Scorpius made an occasional noise, when she seemed to expect a response, but other than that he kept quiet. Alexandra was nice enough, but he just didn't have much to say to her.

It was a beautiful night, though. The sky was scattered with clouds, glowing faintly from the light of a gibbous moon. Waxing, Scorpius thought. And it was the perfect temperature: cool, but with the ground still holding the memory of summer warmth. He wished Alexandra would stop talking, so he could enjoy it properly.

"Scorp," Alexandra said.

"It's Scorpius," he said.

"Sorry. Scorpius." They were standing in the shadow of Greenhouse One. Through the glass, Scorpius could see the Venomous Tentacula undulating its tentacles. They were covered in yellow flowers the size of Bludgers, which he supposed would be striking enough against its red vines, if it were daylight and he could see it properly.

Meanwhile, Alexandra was stammering something out about "don't know how to say this" and "totally understand if you don't feel the same way but."

He blinked at her. "Sorry?"

"Sod it," she said, and grabbed him by the shoulders, and kissed him.

Her lips were quite soft, and he supposed her hair smelled nice. When he didn't immediately pull away, she kind of--sighed into his mouth and eased closer, which was when Scorpius realized he'd rather be anywhere else than here, behind Greenhouse One, kissing this girl with her eager, reaching hands.

"Not happening," he told her.

She jerked back as if she'd been slapped. He looked at her, and her wide eyes in the darkness. She started crying. It was horrific. He left.

 

"Let me get this straight."

It was Saturday night, and Scorpius and Al were in the kitchens eating creampuffs, because the Common Room was full of first-years and their misfiring spells and stickiness.

"Okay."

"She kissed you."

"Yes."

"And you shoved her away and told her ' _Not happening_.'"

"We've been over this."

"And then she started crying." 

"It's not my fault she started crying."

"Well, actually, it is, as she kissed you and you shoved her away and told her 'Not happening.'"

Scorpius bit into a creampuff. It was flavored with almond, and quite delicious. "I didn't ask her to kiss me."

"That's not the point."

Al seemed to be having trouble wrapping his mind around this whole thing. Scorpius hadn't planned to tell him about it at all, but Alexandra was acting colossally weird: she kept laughing shrilly at everything he said, or ducking into girls' lavatories and coming out with red eyes. So Al had asked, then acted all hurt and disappointed that Scorpius hadn't told him immediately.

"So what should I have done, then?"

"Well--" Al chewed a creampuff of his own. "It wouldn't have hurt to be a bit, well, nicer about it."

"Nicer."

"Nicer, yeah? You know, told her you were sorry but you didn't feel that way about her."

"I couldn't tell her anything. As she had attached her _mouth_ to my _face_."

Al sighed. "Still. It was probably her first kiss, or something, and you made it horrible for her."

"It was, in case you don't remember, my first kiss as well." Scorpius felt odd about admitting that, even though Al knew it. "And she didn't seem to care that she made _mine_ horrible."

"Alexandra's nice, I always thought you two got on."

"We do get on."

"So?"

"I just don't--" He stopped. He didn't know how to say it: he didn't want to kiss Alexandra, or even Bridget Legat, who was, according to Justin, the most shaggable girl in their year. He didn't know who he wanted to kiss, particularly, but it wasn't any of the girls he knew, with their high-pitched voices and little bird wrists.

Scorpius was saved from having to complete that thought by the pear painting swinging open. James and Ira tumbled through. He rolled his eyes when James tripped on the sill.

"Hello there," Ira said. He reached out to ruffle Al's hair. "Having a nice night, you two?"

"Nice date, is more like it," James sneered.

"Oh, please." Al swatted Ira's hand away. "If we're on a date, you two are as well."

"Can't deny it." Ira grinned. "James is just so bloody handsome, and all."

James grabbed a handful of creampuffs, and shoved them all in his mouth. House-elves popped up, bringing trays of reinforcements. Scorpius thought that handsome was the opposite of how James looked, with his cheeks all puffed out, and bits of pastry dough stuck to his lips. Although he must have washed his hair for the first time in a week or something, because its curls looked somehow more--deliberately mussed than they usually did.

"So what havoc are you two causing tonight?" Al asked.

"Just having some creampuffs. Saying hullo to the house-elves."

"Ira, let's go."

"But darling, I haven't finished my creampuffs."

James rolled his eyes as Ira, daintily, placed three creampuffs into a napkin.

"Well, cheers you two. Believe we're off to drain Slytherin's stock of Firewhiskey."

"Be safe," Al said, because he was the kind of person who said that.

"Don't let James make a total arse out of himself," Scorpius said, because that was the kind of person he was. Although he did wait until they were almost out of the kitchens, as he didn't really feel like getting into it with James right now.

"That was odd," Al said, after they'd left.

"James is odd."

"Yeah of course. But he didn't seem--I dunno--" Al considered. "As belligerent as usual."

"Miraculous." Scorpius eyed the rest of the creampuffs, wondering if James had infected any of them with his stupidity.

"I'm tired." Al leaned back in his chair and slapped his stomach. "Want to head back up?"

 

That night, Scorpius lay in bed, listening to everyone breathe. Across the room, Orion let out intermittent snores. He usually put up a Silencing Charm before he fell asleep, but tonight he must have forgotten.

Scorpius thought about kissing Alexandra. Her mouth had been very wet, and her breath had puffed against his face, smelling of cinnamon. He had felt nothing--he felt nothing now--apart from an academic interest. Nothing like what Justin and all of them and even Al sounded like, whenever they talked about kissing girls, which they did quite a lot of. (Rather more than they actually kissed girls.)

He turned over onto his side, and stared at the inside of his bed curtain, and then the insides of his eyelids, and then the curtain again. Experimentally, he thought about kissing Al. They would be alone in the bathroom, and Al would be sitting on the edge of a sink with his legs wrapped around Scorpius's waist. Scorpius would open his eyes and see the smudges of Al's eyelashes, making little dark crescents against his cheeks. It would be quiet, except for the sounds their mouths made together.

But that wasn't right, either. It was--better, but it wasn't--right.

Scorpius swung his legs out of bed, and padded into the bathroom. He turned one of the silver knobs of a sink, and filled the basin of his hands with water, and then put his face into it. The water was lukewarm, the temperature of old bathwater. His face, in the silver-speckled mirror, looked very pale, his cheeks almost hollow. His hair was tangled, from all the tossing and turning, and he lifted an absent-minded hand to straighten it.

"Much better, dear," the mirror said, in its voice that sounded of fingernails tapped on glass.

Scorpius ignored the mirror and went downstairs. He didn't know to what purpose, except that he was tired of lying in bed, listening to Orion snore and not sleeping, and not wanting to snog people (and wondering if his father had ever felt this way, because Scorpius had never seen his parents touch each other, not once in fourteen years).

He was sitting in a chair, knees pulled up to his chin, and staring into the banked embers of the fire, before he realized that there was a person on the couch.

It turned out to be James, because someone occupying an influential position in the heavens hated Scorpius very, very much. At least James appeared to be asleep, as he was neither moving nor saying anything about how Scorpius didn't know how to play Quidditch, or was the son of a Death Eater. He was lying on his side, still wearing the clothes he'd had on in the kitchens. One arm trailed off the edge of the couch, with his fingers just brushing the carpet. He looked--peaceful, lying there with his hair a mess and his lips half-parted, red light from the fireplace bringing out the red buried deep in his hair.

Scorpius sat there and watched James sleep, as much as he watched the fire. Every once in a while James would twitch his fingers, or shift his weight, and Scorpius would hold his breath until he was still again.

Finally, when the sky had begun to lighten in the east window of the Tower, Scorpius eased to his feet and padded back up to bed. After a few moments, he fell into a sleep that was thick and deep with exhaustion.

 

Several nights later, Scorpius was in the library, taking notes on the Libation of Remembrance from _Intermediate Potion-Making_. It was quite boring, and he didn't like it, but that was no excuse to do poorly. _Mince three pinches lovage and sprinkle into cauldron..._

"What are you doing down here?" a familiar voice drawled.

Scorpius closed his eyes and asked for patience. "My homework." Which explains why you wouldn't know, as you never do any, he added mentally.

"Not up in the Common Room with everyone else?"

"They were," Scorpius didn't know why he was explaining himself, "working on an essay for Defense, and I've already finished it."

"And you didn't stick around to help with it. Typical, Malfoy."

Scorpius rolled his eyes. Typical Potter.

"What're you working on anyway?" James tried to pull Scorpius's text towards him.

Scorpius slapped a hand down on it. "I'm using that."

"Touchy, touchy. Don't want me to see what you're doing?"

"I'm taking notes on the Libation of Remembrance. It's about the most innocuous thing on the syllabus. So if you're going to start in with all that Death Eater nonsense, try again."

"You aren't good at Potions, are you?"

"No," Scorpius grit out, "I am not."

"Then why're you working on it?"

"Because I am not good at Potions, and unlike Astronomy it is a useful subject."

James looked baffled, as if the concept of working hard at something you were terrible at had never occurred to him before. When he didn't say anything, Scorpius began taking notes again: _Using tail feather of Jobberknowl, stir clockwise three times..._

"You're bloody odd," James informed him.

"Same to you." Scorpius narrowed his eyes, looking up at James through his fringe. "What are you doing in a _library_ , anyway?"

"Quidditch strategy." James tried to hide three brightly-colored books behind him, one of which was entitled _Beating Bludgers for Beginners_. Scorpius recognized it from first year, when he'd read it. He snorted. James Potter, being slow? News to no one.

James wasn't slow enough to miss the snort, though, so he began insulting Scorpius and his parentage. It took Madame Pince four seconds to swoop down on him. Scorpius, who was angelically starring a footnote on the centrality of Jobberknowl feathers in potions affecting memory, escaped her wrath, while James was thrown out of the library on his ear.

Victory was sweet.

 

James's next maneuver was to try the Tentacle-Nose Hex on Scorpius during Quidditch. Scorpius parried it back at him without thinking about it, with--explosive results.

 

Paul countered by assigning them extra practices, just the two of them, three days a week. (After Madame Pomfrey had de-tentacled James's nose, and removed the Body-Bind that Scorpius had put on him.)

 

Scorpius reacted to this by taking a deep breath and going to sit by the lake for an hour, until he thought he could speak without screaming.

James reacted to this by setting an armchair on fire. (Scorpius only learned about the armchair later, as he was by the lake, fighting for calm, when the conflagration occurred.) He also pushed two Hufflepuff second-years down a flight of stairs.

Anyone else would have been suspended for this string of offenses, but James turned up at Quidditch that Monday afternoon, holding his broom and looking mutinous.

Scorpius watched him warm up from a safe distance. He wondered if Professors McGonagall and Longbottom were doing James any favors with this. He clearly didn't care that he'd lost 156 House points by himself--not that Gryffindor was winning the House Cup anyway, if Lucy, Fred, and Louis Weasley had anything to do with it--and whatever talking-to he'd got didn't seem to have done any good. Scorpius tried to imagine Harry Potter, whom he knew from polite handshakes on Platform Nine and Three Quarters and the front page of the Daily Prophet, getting a firecall about this. If Harry Potter, head of the Auror Corps, even answered firecalls involving less than a national catastrophe.

From what Al said, though, he was a good father, who gave hugs and Quidditch lessons and tips about Defense practicals. Al and Lily bore that out--Lily might be a hellion, but she had none of James's meanness, only a mischievous streak a mile wide; and Al was Al.

Scorpius didn't know how James had turned out so wrong.

He realized that he was staring when James spun his broom so they were facing, separated by a quarter of the Quidditch pitch. It was a sharp, breezy day. James's hair was whipping around his face, as the wind belled his red cloak out behind him. Their eyes caught for a second, before Scorpius steered his broom into a climb, so that he wouldn't be able to look at James anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

III

It happened several weeks later, after a particularly awful extra practice. Paul stalked off, shouting that if they couldn't get it worked out by tomorrow, they were off the team and he didn't care how bad the reserves were. Scorpius angled his broom down, ready to give up the idea that he and James Potter were ever going to make a competent pair of Beaters--they were about as suited to each other as a hippogriff was to Potion-making.

James knocked a Bludger at him and he barely spun his broom out of the way in time.

"What the hell d'you think you're doing?" James yelled.

"Getting away from you," Scorpius answered. He sent the Bludger back at James, who dodged easily. He would have sent a hex as well, but he didn't have a hand free for his wand. He flew to the ground and hopped off his broom.

"I _said_ , where the hell are you going?" James was floating along a few feet above his head.

"Somewhere else." Scorpius had a hand free for his wand now, and he sent a Game Over charm at the Bludgers, which obediently froze and belted themselves back into their box. The box lifted off the ground and floated off towards the broom shed.

"Hey! We weren't done with those!"

"I was," Scorpius said, flicking his wand at the door of the shed, to let the box in. He didn't slow his pace.

James finally jumped off his broom, landing in front of him. "You're not the only one that counts!"

Scorpius pushed past James. He didn't even feel like going to the locker room to shower--all he wanted to do was go someplace that James wouldn't follow him. Maybe the library. Madame Pince would hex him blind if he brought his temper in there.

"Are you even going to _say_ anything?"

Scorpius kept walking.

"I don't know how my brother stands being around you!" James was still shouting. "You never say anything, you never react to anything! You're from a family of snakes, and you are a snake!"

He wondered if that was the best that James had got.

"I don't know how your mum stands being near your dad, really I don't! The stink of Death Eater not too much for her? Does she fancy the Dark Mark?"

Scorpius stopped. He took a deep breath, opened his mouth, then shut it and kept walking. James was just trying to get under his skin. He'd heard it all before.

James grabbed his shoulder. "Don't you walk away when I'm talking to you." He looked furious. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was a mess.

"I wouldn't if you ever said anything worth listening to." Scorpius could feel James's fingers digging into his shoulder, even through his practice leathers. His own fingers were so tight around his wand that he felt as if they might break. "It's always you're-a-snake this, your-Dad's-a-Death-Eater that. Doesn't it get old? Don't you think I've heard it before? Merlin, Potter, put some effort in." He twitched his wand and James's hand flew off his shoulder.

Then James punched him. In the jaw. Scorpius was so shocked that the force of the blow carried him to the ground, where he fell in a tangle of broomstick, bat, and legs. He lay there for a second, staring up at James, who was swearing and shaking out his hand. He had never been punched before, or hit--Adalberto had always gone for curses, and there had been no children around for him to have playground tussles with. He didn't even know how to react.

Nor, it appeared, did James. He was starting to look a little sheepish. Presumably he only hit people who were completely defenseless, like Hufflepuff second-years; and while he had a few pounds of muscle and inches of height on Scorpius, Scorpius was miles better at the whole "using magic" thing.

"Really?" was all Scorpius could think to say. "Do you feel better now?"

"Er, not really." James rubbed at his hair, not that he could make it any worse. "Er--"

"I don't want to hear it." Scorpius pulled himself to his feet, collected his Quidditch gear, and headed for the showers. Now that James seemed to have gotten all the senseless rage out of his system, there was no reason to bolt for the library. And he was quite sweaty, and now covered with mud and grass from the fall as well. When he got to the Gryffindor locker room, James was still standing there, near the middle of the pitch, looking as though he'd been the one to get punched.

Scorpius was in the showers when he heard the door bang open. Rustling and clunking noises drifted in, over the sound of the water: presumably James was putting his broom away, and disrobing as well. When he heard James come into the showers, Scorpius closed his eyes and aimed his face up at the spray. It ached a little bit, where it hit against his jaw, but it wasn't enough for him to move.

James mumbled something.

Scorpius sighed. "What?"

"I said I'm sorry, all right?" James snapped. "Are you going to tell Paul?"

He thought about it, turning his face under the water. Finally he said, "I don't know. Are you going to try that again?" He looked at James, who still hadn't gotten under the showerheads. He looked awkward, standing there naked with his arms crossed over his chest, wand sticking out of one hand. Maybe he thought Scorpius was going to curse him or something.

"Er, wasn't planning on it," James muttered. He put his wand on a shelf by the door. "I wouldn't want to try playing with Hera or something."

Scorpius snorted. "You think you'd be the one that stayed?"

"What, you think Paul'd pick you over me?"

"Yes." He grabbed a bar of soap and started lathering his chest.

"You're mental." James stepped into the water.

"Maybe, but I'm also better than you."

James made a growling noise, then sighed, unexpectedly. "Yeah, you bloody are. Wanker."

Scorpius hadn't thought James would admit it. He smiled a bit, and then dropped his soap.

"Here, let me--"

"I've got--"

They bent at the same time. Scorpius found himself in the unusual position of touching James Potter's fingers, on a bar of soap, whilst naked in the Quidditch showers. He looked at James, who was staring at him in something like shock, from about an inch away. His eyes were greener up close, a small corner of Scorpius's mind thought, and there was that little gold rim around his pupils, that he remembered from the stairway. He didn't know why neither of them was moving. Also James had cut himself while shaving, and there was a little scab at the corner of his mouth. His mouth, which was slightly parted, and was, all of a sudden, kissing him.

James's lips were a bit chapped. That was the only thing Scorpius could think about. And the fact that James, whatever his reputation, was not a very good kisser.

Then James skidded back, slipping on the wet tiles and ending up on his arse. He was looking at Scorpius as if he'd never seen him before. Scorpius straightened, slowly, then offered James a hand up. He took it, and then they were kissing again.

It was better this time. James was moving his lips, and his tongue felt less like a Flobberworm. He knotted a hand in Scorpius's wet hair, and Scorpius scraped a hand down his back, and both of them shivered, even though the water pouring down around them was hot. Scorpius was fairly certain that if James stopped, or opened his eyes, or said anything, that he would run all the way back to the castle--but James didn't say anything, just bit at his bottom lip, and Scorpius gasped against his mouth. He felt as though his entire body was tingling, that every place James touched him was breaking out in gooseflesh, even though the water was hot and the air was thick with steam. James pulled his head back, and began pressing open-mouthed kisses along his jaw, down his neck. Scorpius hissed when James's mouth went over his growing bruise, but didn't try to push him away. He could feel himself getting hard, as James's free hand trailed up and down his back, and he would have felt embarrassed but James was hard, too.

"Do you--" James murmured against his collarbone.

"Shut up or I'll stop," Scorpius hissed into his hair. He reached down, feeling James's ribs jump in and out under his hand, the firm indentations across his stomach and the cuts above his hipbones. When he touched his cock, James twitched, mouth going wide against Scorpius's neck. Scorpius wrapped his hand around James. The angle was strange and he had no idea how to go about doing this, but he began to move his hand, slowly at first, then faster as James's breath hitched against his skin. James's hands were moving restlessly over his body, slicking up and down in the water, and then James choked and bit his shoulder and came.

Scorpius was not entirely sure of the protocol at that point. He rinsed James's come off his hand. He didn't know if he was supposed to feel ashamed, or angry, or embarrassed; honestly, he felt a disturbing combination of all those things, mixed with a generous amount of arousal. James seemed disinclined to do anything for him, so he took himself in hand and finished himself off. Then he left, and felt as though he was moving through a thick fog all the way back to the castle.

It had gotten dark out, and the lights of the castle glinted yellow against the sky. Scorpius could see shapes moving in Gryffindor Tower, and all of a sudden he didn't want to go back there; he didn't know if he could look Al in the face, or sit there working on his Herbology homework when James walked through the portrait. Instead, he walked out towards the lake, where it was quiet and he could be alone. He started charming pebbles to skip across the water, but then he pocketed his wand and did it by hand. They made soft splashing noises against the surface of the water, the ripples shaking the reflections of the moon and clouds. When he couldn't find any more pebbles that were the right shape, he sat down on the shore, and tried not to think of James's skin or his sneering mouth.

By the time he got back to Gryffindor, it was after eleven. Justin, Orion, and Prudence were at a table groaning under the weight of Herbology texts; he knew that he should go over and get some work done, but he couldn't summon the motivation. Instead he went upstairs, told Al that extra practice had been "awful, obviously," and charmed the curtains shut around his bed. He added a Silencing Charm as well. He didn't want to hear Norman going on about his Ancient Runes translation, or Eddie's attempts to get him to shut up without being rude. He just wanted to go to sleep, and wake up in a world where he had not gotten James Potter off in the Quidditch showers.

 

This was not to be. Scorpius woke up with a tent in his pajama pants and an imprint of James Potter's teeth in his shoulder. He closed his eyes, tried to think of Alexandra, and dealt with the problem, but midway through she developed a rather different set of equipment and a deeper voice. After he'd finished, Scorpius cast a Cleaning Charm, and tried to explain to Al that the bruise on his jaw was from getting hit with a Bludger, and not sound like someone who had not wanked over his brother after snogging him in the Quidditch showers.

He and Al went down to breakfast early. Al had offered to help him with Herbology--they were supposed to be making a chart of the similarities and differences between bobotubers and Uruguayan Slugleaves, in preparation for a practical exam. Al put his completed chart between their plates and Scorpius began to copy it. Scorpius forced himself to concentrate on the Uruguayan Slugleaves, both because they would apparently burn his eyes out if he got any sap near them, and because he didn't want to see James come into the Great Hall.

Of course, James never cooperated with him. He and Ira came into the Great Hall loudly, like they always did. Ira ruffled his hair, said good morning, slid into the seat next to him and asked if practice had really gone as badly as Paul said it had. James sat on the other side of Ira. Scorpius looked at Ira while they talked, because that was what you did when you talked to someone, and behind Ira's ear he could see that James was looking at him. All he could see was one eye, and one cheekbone, and half of James's mouth, which was open, a little bit, and quite red, and Scorpius didn't know if he was allowed to notice that or not.

"Oi, you need to finish this," Al sad, kicking his ankle.

Scorpius went back to his homework. He copied something wrong, and Al corrected him. They went to Herbology. Scorpius probably would have burned his eye out with an Uruguayan Slugleaf, except that Al cast _Impedimenta_ on him just before he touched it.

"They squirt!" Al hissed, releasing him. "Didn't you read the chart at all? They _squirt_!"

"You know I'm terrible at the Herb," Scorpius muttered back, feeling as though someone else had taken over his body and was directing it to bicker with Al without his conscious participation. Professor Longbottom either did not notice or chose not to notice this exchange.

When they walked through the courtyard on their way to Defense from the greenhouses, James was standing in a corner, talking to Rhys Brannigan and some Ravenclaw girls. He laughed at something one of them said. He didn't notice Scorpius at all.

Quidditch practice arrived eventually, after Scorpius had spent dinner in the library researching Memory Charms. He didn't know how to cast them, but he thought he might try one on James, and then on himself. Al shoved a sandwich at him when he finally made himself walk into the locker rooms. Scorpius dropped half of it down his front when James brushed past him on his way through the door; apparently they had tried to out-late each other. James neither excused himself nor acknowledged Al's squawk of protest.

"Just leave it," Scorpius said.

"Merlin, those extra practices must really be getting to you."

He and James did no better or worse than the usually did. After their extra practice session had ended, Paul complimented James for not swearing at Scorpius, and Scorpius for not acting like a passive-aggressive git, in those exact words. He and James flew down to the ground and swung off their brooms.

"I'm going to fly a bit more," Scorpius called down to them. Paul lifted a hand in response.

It was dark, and the October air was cold, but he didn't want to be in the showers at the same time as James. He waited until he saw two figures walk back up towards the castle before he left the pitch. The locker rooms were dark and empty. He changed out of his Quidditch leathers, considered showering, couldn't make himself go in there, told himself that he was not going to wank over James Potter again when the thought of the shower transitioned directly into the thought of James Potter naked, turned to go out the door, and there was James Potter.

"Hey," he said. He was leaning in the doorway, then slowly he stepped into the light, letting the door swing shut behind him. It clicked closed with a snick that Scorpius felt somewhere deep in his belly. He swallowed, and looked at James's mouth, which had framed the word "hey" in the same low, husky way that it had said "do you" the night before.

"Don't," Scorpius said. "Just, don't."

James's lips twisted to the side. "Don't what?"

Scorpius shook his head. He picked up his book bag, and would have walked out the door, if it weren't for the fact that James was still blocking it. He would have pushed past him, yesterday.

"Don't," James said. Scorpius wondered if he had entered a circle of hell in which they repeated the same word at each other, until he exploded from--everything. Scorpius looked at James, whose eyes were narrowed as if he was concentrating. Then James said "fuck it," took two long strides across the room, and kissed him again.

It was like before, and also not. James's lips were still chapped and he put his hand in Scorpius's hair again. When James tried to unbuckle his belt, Scorpius pushed his hands away. James said "Okay," right under his ear, breath steaming against his skin. Scorpius shivered and turned his face into James's hair. It was softer than it looked, and dry, so maybe he hadn't wanted to go into the showers, either, and Scorpius didn't know how to feel about that.

After a while, James nosed him in the jaw--not on the bruised side, which was weirdly touching or completely accidental--and said, "Hey, so."

"What?"

"I've got to go finish up something for Uncle Charlie." James was almost whispering. He moved his hand through Scorpius's hair, slowly. "I mean, Professor Weasley."

"Okay." Scorpius wriggled out from underneath him. "I've got Potions."

They walked up to the castle, not talking although a couple of times Scorpius thought James was about to say something. James went to meet Ira in the library, and Scorpius climbed up to Gryffindor Tower, where Eddie and Alexandra got into a shouting match about the role of alihotsy in Calming Draughts.

 

On the way to the Potions classroom Friday morning, Al asked him if he was all right.

"What?" Scorpius said. His voice cracked a bit in the middle.

"I dunno, you're quiet."

"Newsflash Potter," Justin called from behind him, "he's always quiet."

Al rolled his eyes. He and Justin had never got on particularly well, as much as it was possible for Al not to get on with someone. Scorpius didn't mind Justin, himself, but he would admit that he tended to be loud and butt into conversations he hadn't been invited into. "Maybe around that git you are."

"Al!" Scorpius had never heard him swear at anyone other than James.

"And you and James were acting weird last night."

"What?"

"I dunno, I mean he didn't scream you were a cock-sucking snake in front of the whole team like he usually does." Scorpius choked and tripped on the floor, trying not to think of cocks or sucking. Al gave him a dubious look. "Well, just as long as the two of you don't mess up against Slytherin."

"We could hardly do worse," he managed.

"You'll get it."

Scorpius held the door open for Al, and they took their normal table by the windows that looked over the lake. "D'you know when my dad was here they had Potions down in the dungeons?"

"Yeah, my parents mentioned something about that once." Al pulled out his textbook and opened it to the section on Calming Draughts. "Doesn't make sense does it? Hard to ventilate down there."

"You'd think."

Professor Goldstein asked them a few questions--answered by Eddie, who was the best in their year at Potions, and the chubby Hufflepuff girl who was his only real competition--then told them to get to it. Scorpius liked him, mostly because he let them talk as long as they were getting work done. This made it easier to ask Eddie questions about what his potions were supposed to look like, since he and Prudence were at the next table over. He started chopping alihotsy leaves, wondering if he could nick some of Eddie's Calming Draught to take before Quidditch. Maybe then he could avoid making snogging James a three-days-running kind of thing, except that there was the sick fact that he kind of, in a way, would not be completely opposed to that happening.

It was just when James opened his mouth for any other purpose that there were problems.

 

He needn't have worried about snogging James becoming a three-days-running kind of thing, after he lost his concentration for a second--he was watching Alexandra, Paul, and Ira execute a complicated-looking maneuver--and suddenly there was a Bludger a foot in front of his face. He swung at it reflexively, then watched as it pelted towards James's back. It all happened too quickly for him to shout out a warning. James didn't fall off his broom when the Bludger hit him, but he screamed, sharply, before he choked himself off. He landed carefully, Ira steadying his broom. Cara Boot, the Keeper, shot off towards the castle for Madame Pomfrey.

James sat on the ground. He was holding his right arm across his chest; it looked as though something was horrifically wrong in his shoulder. Al and Ira were kneeling with him, one on each side. Al and James looked the same from the angle that Scorpius was hovering at, except that James was bigger and his hair was longer; up close, Al's hair would be true black, to James's dark auburn, but from a distance the brothers were virtually indistinguishable.

Paul dismissed practice after Madame Pomfrey had come for James. He gestured for Scorpius to stay behind.

"Did you mean to do that?" he asked. He looked furious.

"No. I wasn't paying attention, and--"

Paul rubbed a hand over his eyes. "That looked bloody awful."

Scorpius nodded. He felt sick, thinking of the smashed angle of James's shoulder.

"If he knocks your teeth in you deserve it."

"I didn't mean to--"

"Malfoy, I'm tired of this shit."

"I told you I didn't mean to! We don't get along but I wouldn't sabotage the team. Merlin, Paul."

"I don't know that I believe you." Scorpius had spent his fair share of time listening to Paul ream him out, for various James-related or positional offenses, but he'd never heard this kind of anger in his voice before. "Look. I know you and James don't get along. And he is a bit of a prat sometimes."

"A bit? Every time he talks to me he insults me or my family or says something about my father--"

Paul told him to shut his mouth, because the children of Death Eaters were no better than Death Eaters, and they didn't have the right to complain about a damn thing, since they were lucky to be outside Azkaban at all. Scorpius stared. He could feel his hands shaking and a strange roaring in his ears. He told Paul to enjoy beating Slytherin with Hera Boosalis as Beater, and then he turned and walked out. Unlike James, Paul did not tell him to wait. When he got back to the Common Room, everyone got quiet when he walked in, except for a second-year with his back to the portrait hole, who was saying in his reedy, penetrating voice "Malfoy broke his shoulder 'cause he's a Potter, everyone knows about--"

Scorpius went upstairs, changed out of the Quidditch leathers he was still wearing, and then left again. He slept in the tunnel behind Irmelda the Intractable. With Heating Charms, it wasn't so bad, even if he didn't sleep at all because every time he closed his eyes he could hear James's choked-off scream, and feel James's hand in hair, pulling his head back to bite at his throat.

 

He had to go back to Gryffindor Tower eventually, but he put it off until after the Quidditch team would have left for Saturday practice. Norman was the only one in the room when he arrived. He said that everyone else had gone to the library, which wasn't true--Justin and Orion always told Norman they were going to the library, when they just wanted to get shot of him, and Eddie would go along with it because Justin and Orion were more popular than he was. Scorpius himself had gone along with it, until he'd realized how angry it made Al, and then he'd stopped. But in this moment, when it was just him and Norman, who was not acting like he cared whether Scorpius had intentionally broken James's shoulder, he felt generous towards the other boy.

"Hey," Scorpius said, after he'd brushed his teeth and changed clothes.

Norman looked up from the comic he was reading. "Yeah?"

"Want to, I don't know." He cast around for something. With Al it was easy--go for a walk, sneak into the kitchens. With the other boys in his year, there was Quidditch. He realized that he had only ever started a conversation with Norman once, and that had been about that assignment for Muggle Studies. "Go play chess or something?" Scorpius hated chess, but Norman had a round face, two chins, and rather bad spots, and Scorpius vaguely thought that people like that would enjoy it.

"I bloody hate chess. Exploding Snap?"

"Sure."

Norman jumped up from his bed and rummaged around in his trunk, until he came out with a pack of cards. They looked brand-new.

"Want to deal?"

Scorpius accepted the cards, shuffled them, and dealt. They played on the floor in the center of the circle of beds, mostly in silence, except for Norman's shouts of victory whenever one of Scorpius's cards blew up.

"I can teach you a charm for the spots," Scorpius said after Norman had won.

"That exists?" Norman looked pathetically happy. Scorpius remembered that he was Muggle-born, and his parents couldn't teach him what Scorpius's own mother referred to as Spells for Personal Grooming. They went into the bathroom and Vanished the spots. When his face was spot-free, Norman caught his eye in the mirror.

"I'm glad you broke Potter's shoulder," he said quietly.

"I didn't do it on purpose." Norman was only the second person that Scorpius had told this to.

"I would have. He's terrible."

"Still doesn't mean he deserves to be in the hospital wing. And with the Slytherin match coming up--"

Norman said that he didn't care about Quidditch, but that James had once charmed all of his books to read "I Love Cock," and called him a fat faggot every time they passed in the halls. 

"He punched me once," Scorpius offered, wondering what would happen if he told Norman that James could, in fact, be termed a faggot himself--probably with three times the justification.

"And I've heard what he says to you, too. It's like that because he's a Potter, he can do whatever the bloody hell he wants to do."

"Maybe."

"He's a god damned bully," Norman said, "and I'm glad he got some of his own back."

 

No one on the Quidditch team was speaking to him, not even Al, which was what hurt the most. It was as if Scorpius had never put on the red-and-gold leathers, had not spent nine hours and forty-nine minutes on a broom in the rain, winning them the House Cup the year before in the marathon slog against Ravenclaw, had not sweated through double practices and run drills and never once complained to Paul about having James as his partner, even though everyone in Hogwarts knew they hated each other.

After a day in the Hospital Wing, James was back on form, snarling at first-years when they got in his way, calling Norman a fat faggot between classes, and generally behaving nightmarishly. Scorpius had expected to get punched again, or worse, but James ignored him comprehensively, as if he deserved less notice than even Norman. He vacillated between being fine with this--he could live without the insults--and wishing that James would say something to him, any bloody thing, so he would either be able to explain that it had been an accident and everything would go back to the way it had been, or decide that James was so worthless that he merited having well-founded rumors about his sexual orientation spread around the school.

He ended up spending quite a bit of time with Norman, since Justin, Orion, and Eddie were all toeing the Quidditch team line. Norman was annoying a lot of the time; he laughed too loudly at things that weren't funny, and he was a disaster in Charms. But he also wasn't as distasteful as Scorpius had thought he was at the beginning of the year: he could do a mean impression of Professor McGonagall, and he didn't care about Quidditch.

 

A week after the Bludger Incident, Flitwick had set them to practicing Doubling Charms. Scorpius muttered " _Geminio_ " and wiggled his wand at the pen on his desk, which obediently recreated itself.

"Sloppy, Mr. Malfoy. Remember to enunciate," Professor Flitwick said.

Scorpius sighed and cast it again.

"Better." Flitwick nodded at him. "Now figure out how to quadruple it." He looked over at Norman, who was waving his wand at a stubbornly singular sock and shuddered. Norman flushed.

"How do you do that?" he hissed once Flitwick had moved on.

"Practice." Scorpius squinted at the pens. " _Quattuor_?" he tried, with the same wand movement. Nothing happened. " _Quadrum_?"

"How can you _practice_? We just learned the bloody spell."

"I dunno, I like Charms."

Norman sighed. "Yeah. Can you show me the wand thing again?"

Scorpius demonstrated.

"Can I try with a pen? Maybe that'll be easier."

"Er, actually, it has more disparate elements to duplicate so--"

Norman wagged his wand at one of the pens on Scorpius's desk, and carefully pronounced " _Geminio_."

All three of the pens exploded, drenching Scorpius in black ink. Alexandra turned around and laughed unpleasantly. Norman looked shocked, and started apologizing excessively.

"It's really okay, it happens, I'll just go to the lav and get cleaned up." Scorpius disentangled himself from Norman's string of _sorry, I didn't mean to_ s and ducked out of the classroom. He knew Flitwick wouldn't mind; everyone else in the class was still trying to get the Doubling Charm.

With a combination of water, _Scourgify_ , and _Tergeo_ , Scorpius was mostly ink-free by the time James walked in.

"Malfoy," James said.

"Potter." Scorpius fiddled with the end of his wand.

James made a disgusted noise and turned to leave. He was half out the door before Scorpius heard himself saying, "I didn't mean to do it."

James stopped.

"It was an accident," he continued. "I wasn't looking where I hit it."

" _Then why are you acting like such a shady little shit about it_?" James roared. He spun and lunged towards Scorpius, who raised his wand: he was in no mood to get punched again. James froze at the end of the wand.

"If you're going to try and hit me again you'd better be ready for the dark magic you're always going on about," Scorpius said, barely recognizing the dangerous way his own voice sounded.

James stepped back, drawing his own wand. They stared at each other. Then James swore and shoved his wand back in his pocket. "Put that fucking thing away," he ordered Scorpius, who felt no inclination to obey. "Fine. Be a shit then."

Scorpius rolled his eyes.

"Why'd you quit then? If you're really so _innocent_?"

"I told Paul what happened. He didn't care." Scorpius declined to tell James about the other things that Paul didn't believe.

"But you _quit_. You weren't kicked off. You _quit_ ," James repeated, as if that made all the difference.

"Before I was kicked off, yeah." Scorpius crossed his arms over his chest.

"You should have told me," James said. He sounded like his father did, when he was interviewed on the WWN: terribly earnest, and convinced that whatever was wrong, he could _fix it_. In other words this conversation was not going the way that Scorpius had expected it to.

"And you'd have believed me."

"Quidditch is a bloody dangerous sport."

"Especially when your teammate's a Death Eater. Right."

"Why are you such a little bastard?" James asked. "You are so _fucking_ hard to deal with."

Scorpius laughed in his face. "Me? You're the bully. You think people like that, Potter? You think it's cute?"

"What?"

"You know."

"I don't, actually, but I do know which war crimes your family was convicted of."

"Nice dig, Potter. Really original." He rolled his eyes. "Thanks for proving my point for me."

" _I still don't know what the fuck you're talking about!_ "

"Norman Barnabas. All the first-years. The Hufflepuff I saw you shove out of your way yesterday. She dropped all her books. It was lovely, Potter, really lovely."

"I was late."

"You were late. Of course. I'm going back to class."

"Why the fuck are you always walking away? I'm trying to fucking talk to you!"

Scorpius pushed past him. James grabbed his wrist. Scorpius could feel his Quidditch calluses, the heat of his skin.

"Stop, damn it!"

"I don't think I will." Scorpius yanked free and slammed out the door. He didn't realize that he was shaking until he got back into class, and none of his spells worked because he couldn't hold his wand hand steady. Norman kept asking if he was mad about the pens. Scorpius managed not to curse his tongue out, but it was a close thing.

Also he couldn't stop thinking about the way James's mouth shaped itself around the word _fuck_.


	5. Chapter 5

IV

Scorpius was walking to the Great Hall for dinner after Muggle Studies when James yanked him behind a tapestry of Ethelred the Ever-Ready, into a narrow, deserted hallway. Scorpius was opening his mouth to curse him, but then James had his arms pinned and he was up against the wall and James was biting at his bottom lip, hard enough that Scorpius tasted blood. He couldn't think. He squeezed his eyes shut so that he wouldn't see James's face, wouldn't see the freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose or the dark shadows of his eyelashes. James kissed him like he had punched him: unexpected, impossible to resist.

"If you make a fucking noise I will--"

"Shut up," Scorpius hissed against his mouth. "Shut up and--"

James moaned and smashed their mouths back together. Scorpius could feel the hard length of him against his hip. He bit at James's neck, at the skin where his jaw hinged. Stubble scraped against his face. He didn't care. He couldn't think. Their mouths were making obscene, wet noises against each other, and James had let go of his arms, and yanked his head to the side to get at his neck. James was thrusting his hips against him. Scorpius could almost feel the zipper of his corduroys pressing against the skin of his cock. James swore and fumbled at Scorpius's trousers, then got his hand inside them and it felt like nothing he could have imagined: James had calluses and his grip was too tight and Scorpius was spreading his legs, wrapping one around James's back. He kissed James's neck, his jaw, whatever he could reach, until he felt his balls tightening and he was coming into James's fist.

"Fuck," James said into his hair, and his voice sounded amazed and breathy and kind of like everything Scorpius wanted when he was touching himself alone in the dark, which was not the kind of thought Scorpius had about anything or anyone, especially James Potter who shoved Hufflepuffs down stairs and called people fat faggots.

Scorpius unbuttoned James's trousers. He was wearing worn khakis, frayed around the pockets and buttonhole. Scorpius inched down the zipper, feeling James's hardness against his fingers. He pushed down his trousers, and reached into his pants. James twitched when he touched him. The skin on his cock was hot and tight. He moved his hand, slowly at first, then faster, as James mouthed his neck and shuddered and came, with a muffled noise against his skin.

Scorpius remembered how weirdly tender James had been the second time, how he had stroked his hair and nuzzled into the side of his face. They straightened their clothes in silence, and Scorpius _Episkey_ -ed his lip. Scorpius tried not to look at James's face--his swollen mouth, his sleepy hazel eyes, the angles of his cheekbones--but couldn't stop himself from doing it, in the end, or from wanting to push a curl of too-long hair off his forehead.

James kissed his temple and slipped out from behind the tapestry.

Scorpius slid down the wall, feeling the rough stone against his back. He didn't know how long he sat there, but when he got up his back ached and the dinner plates were vanishing off the tables in the Great Hall. James was nowhere to be seen.

 

"You missed dinner," Al said when he got back up to the dormitory. This was the first thing Al had said to him since the Bludger Incident, five days ago.

"I did," Scorpius agreed. He wondered what was bringing this on. He missed having Al as a friend, fiercely, but there was still the fact that Al had been willing to believe Scorpius had meant to break his brother's shoulder. Then again, he hadn't ever told him differently, had he? He felt vaguely sick, with this following on the heels of James behind the tapestry.

Al chucked a roll at his head. "I saved that for you."

"Thanks." Scorpius didn't tell him that he'd gone down to the kitchens and picked at leftover pork roast and apples. He tore off a corner of the roll. They stared at each other, blue eyes into green.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me it was an accident?" Al finally asked.

"I don't know," Scorpius said, although that wasn't what he'd planned on saying when he'd opened his mouth. "Everyone just believed I'd done it. I told Paul and it didn't change his mind. So I didn't think it was worth it. People are going to believe what they want to believe. About that or about--" He was going to say "my father," but stopped himself.

"Yeah, they sure will if you don't speak up for yourself. Idiot." But he said it with affection. "James told me all of that, you know?"

"Did he?"

Al chucked a sock at him. "Don't make me find something like that out from my bloody brother ever again."

They went down to the common room the way that they always did, and Al helped him with his Herbology. Scorpius saw Norman sitting by himself in a corner, and told him to come over, since he was awful at Herbology, along with everything else. Al gave him a bit of a look, but didn't comment, just started explaining how to properly pot bouncing bulbs.

 

"You should come back," Ira informed him at breakfast the next morning. Scorpius supposed that with both Potters backing him, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the team fell in line. Besides, he and Ira had always gotten along well--Ira was good at talking, and he was good at listening.

"I will if Paul asks me," he said, after a moment.

"You were the one that quit, though." Ira blinked at him as if this was the crux of the matter.

Scorpius shrugged and ate a bite of toast. There wasn't any coffee, not that there ever was. He'd asked the house-elves for it, but they'd bowed and scraped and squeaked that the Headmistress had forbidden them from filling student requests, for reasons budgetary and dietary, Scorpius assumed. Still, though. Tea was vile and for the weak. "You weren't there," he finally said, since Ira appeared to be waiting for a response of some kind.

"He's not going to ask you back, mate."

"Then he's an idiot. How's Hera doing?"

Ira shuddered. "Don't say that name. James is ready to take his bat to her. I am too, mind, and I haven't even got a bat."

"Paul should ask Scorp back," Alexandra chipped in from the other side of the table. She was looking at him with her big brown eyes, and he felt a stab of irritation--that was the way she'd looked at him all September, after she'd kissed him, but he hadn't heard her offering to be his partner in Defense any time since last Friday.

Ira stabbed at his plate of kippers. "We'll see," he said at last.

Scorpius finished his toast and swallowed down some orange juice. Ira had more influence on the team than he thought he did, and Scorpius figured he'd be made captain after Paul graduated (though he hadn't shared this with anyone else). Ira got on with everyone, and had a good head for strategy--Scorpius knew for a fact that he was the one planning their plays this season, even though Paul was taking the credit. James, on the other hand, was a hotheaded git who punched his teammates, then chewed on their lips until they needed Healing before they could go out in public.

But he was a Potter, and that did matter, since the Heads of House picked the captains, and everyone and his garden gnomes knew about Professor Longbottom and the Potters (and the Battle of Hogwarts and on and on).

"Want some tea?" Alexandra asked him, levitating the pot in his direction.

"He bloody hates tea," James barked from behind her. "Ira, come on, we need to get to Care Of, I need to ask Charlie something. I mean, Professor Weasley."

Alexandra jumped and spilled the tea all over Norman's plate. As Scorpius helped clean it up, he wondered how James had found out that he hated tea.

 

That night, he and Al slipped out of Gryffindor Tower, and climbed up to the top of Astronomy. Al wanted to re-do a star char for Professor Sinistra--apparently his angles had been off or something.

"You and your maths," Scorpius said, lying back on the flagstone floor of the tower. Above him, stars were wheeling. He should know their names, but he didn't; Al almost certainly would. He enjoyed things like Astronomy and Arithmancy, with their minute, detailed measurements.

"You and your charms," Al countered. 

Scorpius made a disinterested noise. He liked magic that did things. As far as he could tell, Al's favorite three of Herbology, Astronomy, and Arithmancy involved a great amount of standing around, staring at things and then writing down other things in detailed charts. And as long as he had Al to explain it all to him, he saw no need to take a more active interest. (Not that he would ever be caught near Professor Vector's classroom.)

The moon was rising slowly over the crenellated edge of the tower, a narrow silver crescent. It was a clear night. Should be perfect for Al and his telescope. He waved his wand, and the warmth of a Heating Charm bloomed out over them.

"You need to teach me how to do that," Al said, looking up from the eye of his telescope. He grinned. "So when I bring girls up here, the wind won't ruin the mood."

Scorpius snorted. "What girls?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"And besides, I'd think you'd want it to be cold. So they'd want to--huddle for warmth."

Al laughed. "It's a bloody pity though, isn't it? Not a nice-looking Gryff in our year."

"Guess not, no," Scorpius said, thinking of Alexandra's brown eyes and the way she'd pressed herself against him. It hadn't been bad, he guessed, just horrifically awkward and he never wanted to think of her lips anywhere near him, ever again; whereas with James, great pillock though he was--Scorpius sighed.

"We're going to have to start chasing the Ravenclaws. That's what James does. He says the Hufflepuffs are too easy."

Scorpius pushed himself up to sit cross-legged. He didn't know how he felt about James chasing after Ravenclaws. He guessed they were pretty enough, despite the bookishness--certainly better-looking than Alexandra, who was broad-faced and virtually indistinguishable from a board, even if her hair did smell nice. He remembered James snogging Maureen Hornby, earlier that year. He wondered if James had snogged any Ravenclaws, if he'd done more with the easy Hufflepuffs. It was an uncomfortable thing to be thinking about: James shivering against Bridget Legat, the fourth-year Ravenclaw who was generally accepted to be the best-looking girl in the school; or coming into the hand of the pillow-breasted fifth-year Hufflepuff that they sat next to in the library, sometimes. "So which one do you want?" he asked Al.

Al immediately turned back to his telescope, and mumbled something.

"Didn't hear you, Potter."

"I _said_ there's no one in particular."

"Sure," Scorpius drawled. He was enjoying being friends with Al too much to push it, and Al wasn't much good at keeping secrets, anyway. "So, if James says the Hufflepuffs are too easy, what's he saying about Rose?"

Al shuddered, but he was laughing. "I don't even want to think about that!"

While Al finished his star chart, Scorpius practiced Patronuses. It was the only charm he'd tried, since first year, that had given him any trouble. Professor Jones told them to focus on happy memories, powerful ones. Scorpius had plenty of happy memories to choose from, or at least he thought he did--playing Quidditch, winning the House Cup back from Ravenclaw last year, waking up to the sound of Al's laughter--but he'd never managed anything more than an indistinct silver-tinged cloud.

" _Expecto Patronum_ ," he said firmly into the spell-warmed air, concentrating on the feeling of flying: the wind in his face, the rough-taped handle of his bat in his hand, the soaring sensation in his stomach. Nothing happened.

"Are you still on with that?" Al asked.

"Yeah."

"Glad there's at least one charm you can't do perfectly," Al said gloomily.

This time, for no particular reason, Scorpius thought about the way that James smelled. Soap, and the rich scent of his well-oiled Quidditch leathers. " _Expecto Patronum_." He wasn't expecting it to work, but the familiar silver cloud drifted out of the end of his wand. Scorpius was so shocked he almost lost it entirely, but then he concentrated: James's lips, his callused hands and the oversized, hand-knit jumpers that he had started wearing, now that it was getting colder.

The edges of the cloud began firming themselves up, began to take shape. And then, quite suddenly, there was a wolf standing in front of him. It cocked its head and wagged its tail.

"Al!" Scorpius yelped.

But by the time Al had turned, the wolf was gone. "What?"

"I did it!"

"I don't see a bloody great silver animal anywhere."

"Er, I lost it. But I got it, for a second!" By thinking about snogging your brother, he thought. Then he forced himself to stop that train of thought, because he really didn't want to reflect on the fact that sweaty, secretive clinches with James Potter were powerful enough happy memories to produce a corporeal Patronus.

"Well, what was it, then?"

"A wolf."

"Ooh, scary." Al's Patronus was an otter. He'd been one of the first to get one, in their Defense class; Professor Jones had told him she'd expected nothing more from the son of Harry Potter, and given Gryffindor five points, just because. Scorpius had thought this was a little unfair, but Al'd said he was bitter because he wasn't the best at a charm, for once. "Listen, so." Al dropped onto the floor, sitting in roughly the same place that the wolf Patronus had appeared. "Paul's going to ask you to come back to the team."

Scorpius flopped back down, and stared up at the stars. The stones under his back were cold, and smooth from years of students' feet. Al nudged his ankle. "Aren't you happy?"

"I guess, yeah."

"It's what you wanted."

"Yeah."

"You do want to come back," Al said slowly. "Ira said you did."

"I do." Scorpius swallowed. "It's just--"

"I know James is pretty awful to you. I'll tell him to lay off. Or I'll get Dad to tell him to lay off."

"You don't need to do that. It's not James, really. I can--" Scorpius had been about to say, "I can handle him," but honestly, he didn't know if he could.

"Then what is it?"

Scorpius said it was complicated. Then, because Al wasn't satisfied, he told him what Paul had said to him. "Good enough?" he asked the night sky. His hands, pillowed between the stone and his head, were starting to go numb from the cold.

"Oh, Scorpius," Al said.

"I know some people think that. And James says it all the time, but James just says whatever he thinks'll get a rise out of me. Paul, though--he meant it."

"I am so sorry," Al said. "I am so sorry."

Scorpius sighed. There was nothing Al could do; he wished that there was, but there wasn't. "I'm going to bed, all right?" He stood up, and offered Al a hand. Al took it and Scorpius pulled him to his feet. He looked troubled; his green eyes were very wide, and there was a line across his forehead. Unexpectedly, Al dragged him into a hug. Scorpius, after a moment, hugged him back.

 

The conversation with Paul, right after Potions, was awkward, but at least neither one of them wanted to drag it out. As soon as Paul had walked away, James popped up around a corner, dragged him into a broom closet, and snogged him senseless. It wasn't very comfortable, because the closet smelled like dirty mop water and there was a shelf digging into his back, but also because he kept thinking about how James was A Powerful Happy Memory.

"So you're coming back?" James asked into the side of his face. Scorpius could feel his lips moving, lightly, over his eyebrow, the skin at the edge of his eyelid. He nodded. He did not know if he had ever felt so afraid.

"I'll see you at practice." James kissed the corner of his eye, the slid out of the closet.

Scorpius charmed the door locked. He hadn't thought to do it before, because James's mouth had been so hot and his hands had been everywhere, absolutely everywhere. He slowly sat down, among the mop heads and doxie droppings, and rested his head on his knees. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to throw up, and he could smell James on his fingers, and he wished that he could be happy about this.

 

He walked down to practice with Al. Everyone said it was good to have him back, except for James, who acted as though he wasn't alive. They played well, though; maybe in the broom closet, or in the Charms corridor bathroom, they had worked something out between them.

That night--it was Friday, a big night in the Gryffindor common room; the Ravenclaws usually handled Saturday, with the Hufflepuffs holding loyal to Thursdays and the Slytherins doing whatever night they pleased--Ira produced Firewhiskey and some Vipertooth Vodka. He shoved a shot of vodka into Scorpius's hand, "to celebrate his return"; Scorpius wouldn't have taken it, except that James looked up from the Ravenclaw he was leaning into. Scorpius stared back at him, and at the girl, whose name was maybe Laura and who definitely had a, a lovely figure and nice blonde hair.

The vodka burned in his stomach. Al had somehow managed to corner Bridget Legat over by the table they usually studied at. Ira was trying to climb up onto the mantelpiece; a knot of Hufflepuffs, not including Rose, were shrieking at him. Rhys Brannigan was fiddling with a set of Muggle speakers, which were fizzing out sparkly blue smoke and the heavy bass line of the Les Feys. Someone had Doubled the alcohol, or else the Hufflepuffs had brought some along with them. James was touching maybe-Laura's back, and her long hair was curling over the backs of his knuckles.

Scorpius poured himself another drink, then went upstairs. Norman was lying in bed, as he'd know he would be, reading one of his ubiquitous comics.

"Want to come down for a bit?" he asked, not meaning it at all.

"Got tired of your popular friends?"

"Maybe." Scorpius swirled the cup of vodka. "Want some?"

Norman made a face. "I won't touch that rot."

"Suit yourself." Scorpius usually wouldn't touch more than one drink of it either, but he couldn't get the image of James's hands on that girl's back out of his head. She's been wearing a low-backed dress, and his hand had been brushing against her skin. He swallowed his drink, coughing a little as the vodka scorched down his throat. "Hey, come on. Let's go for a walk."

Norman looked dubious, but set down his comic and put on his shoes. He was still wearing jeans and a jumper. "So am I going to figure out where you and Al are always going?"

"We don't always go anywhere." Norman followed Scorpius down the stairs. He fancied he could feel the alcohol unfolding itself through his bloodstream. Because he could, Scorpius _Accio_ -ed a half-empty bottle of the Vipertooth. Rhys had cranked up the volume of the speakers. People were starting to dance, including Bridget and Al, who had the dazed look of someone who'd been struck upside the head with a Bludger. No one noticed them slip through the Fat Lady.

"What now?" Norman asked.

Scorpius shrugged. Two Ravenclaw boys came up and he gave the Fat Lady the password, dragon pox. After they'd hopped through the portrait hole, Scorpius led Norman down the staircase. There was an unused classroom that he and Al went to sometimes, if they wanted to study and the Common Room was too loud. Scorpius charmed the door open, then locked it behind them, using a spell he'd read about over the summer that wouldn't be broken by _Alohomora_. He cast a Silencing Charm for good measure.

"Here." He shoved the bottle at Norman when he was done with the charms.

"I don't--"

"Fine." Scorpius _Accio_ -ed it back and took a swig. It didn't taste as bad now. Since his thirteenth birthday, his mother had allowed him a glass of wine with dinner; other than that, he'd had the occasional butterbeer or hard drink, when Ira was being persuasive. He hoped the charms would hold. Madame Pomfrey would, at some point during the year, be giving them a lecture about Over the Limit, Under the Earth Or An Elephant, but he didn't think a Silencing Charm would be landing him near the African plains. The worst that could happen would be that it would break. Probably.

"I thought you'd want to be there," Norman said, sitting on top of a desk and kicking his heels back and forth. "You know, celebrating having your real friends back."

"Wasn't in the mood." Scorpius levitated the bottle back over to Norman. "Come on, just try a bit. It won't kill you."

Looking dubious, Norman tipped back the bottle. As soon as the Vipertooth hit his tongue, he started coughing and spluttering.

"Burns a bit, does it?"

"It's bloody awful! How do you drink this rot?"

"I don't, usually." Norman had a hole in the knee of his jeans, and his jumper was a little too small: it pulled tight across his stomach, and his wrists were sticking out. The knot was coming out of one of his trainer laces. He looked uncomfortable, young, and vulnerable. Scorpius felt like an awful person. "You don't have to drink if you don't want. I'm just--" He stopped. He didn't know what else to say.

"It's all right. I had to do this eventually." Norman took another swig, shuddering as it went down. "See? God, I'm living out my parents' nightmares of public school."

"What?"

"Oh, you know." Norman waved the Vipertooth. "This. Sneaking around after hours. With a posh boy."

"I hate it when people say I'm posh." Scorpius _Accio_ -ed the vodka back in retaliation. "But what's that got to do with anything?"

"They were afraid I'd turn into some kind of ponce nancy, fluffing around in a wizard hat."

"That doesn't make any sense. And no one wears hats anymore but Professor McGonagall."

"They're Muggles, mate, they don't know."

"Right." Scorpius took a slug. "I am snogging James Potter, rather a lot," he announced, for no particular reason, except that he was drunk, and no one would believe Norman if he tried to spread it around.

Norman laughed. "Nice one. Way to play up the stereotype, mate. Give me that back."

Later, after Norman had thrown up in a wastepaper basket and Scorpius had spent ten minutes trying to remember the charm to unlock the door, they made it back to Gryffindor Tower. The party had wound down: there were bodies on the couch, and a Hufflepuff passed out on the floor in front of the fireplace. Rhys's speakers were still spitting out puffs of blue smoke, but the music blinked in and out, and sounded as if it was coming from very far away.

 

In the half-waking minutes before Al dragged him to breakfast, this is what Scorpius dreamed: the common room was empty, except for the tang of blue smoke and bottles and James and the blonde Ravenclaw. James was leaning on the back of a couch and she was standing between his legs. Her dress was pushed down around her hips. James was stroking his hands up and down her back, in and out of her long curling hair. Scorpius watched his fingertips circle the skin at the base of her spine, figure-eight around her vertebrae. James cocked his head to the side as she stepped closer into his body. He looked around her, at Scorpius, the corners of his mouth lifted in an expression that was like a smile without being at all like a smile.

Then Al was shaking his shoulder, and for a moment Scorpius thought he was James, but the resemblance faded.

"So what happened with Legat?" Scorpius asked as they were brushing their teeth. He felt gritty and his head ached; Al looked worse, but at Bridget's name he smiled, the sort of straightforward uncomplicated smile that Scorpius doubted he would ever see on James.

"We danced a bit, then I walked her back to Ravenclaw," Al answered. "Merlin, she's a bit all right, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

"We're supposed to get a drink in Hogsmeade next weekend."

"Fast mover, Al."

Al punched the air. "I'm taking out Bridget Legat!"

Scorpius wondered if James would be taking out his own Ravenclaw. The Potters could go on a double date with their witty girls at Madame Puddifoot's; Scorpius could try to buy bottles of Firewhiskey at the Hog's Head with Ira, or watch Norman go through the shelves of wizard comics at Flourish and Blotts. Hopefully James would choke on some confetti, and die.

 

For the next week, Scorpius had to listen to Al rhapsodize on Bridget's every feature, from her eyes (blue) to her breasts ("not big, but you know--just right, yeah?") (not that he'd touched them) to the way she looked walking down the hallway (breathily: "brilliant"). They started sitting next to each other in History of Magic, and Bridget would giggle occasionally, while on Al's other side, Scorpius tried not to hex her "just right" breasts out of existence. In Arithmancy, Bridget was "the best--she's brilliant, Scorp, she knows everything, but she's not a show-off like Rose, you know?" (Al only called Scorpius "Scorp" when he was too distracted to fear for the integrity of his person and belongings.) So he was willing, by Saturday morning, to entertain hopes that Al would choke on confetti and die, as well.

"So what're you doing in Hogsmeade?" Al asked, as he was staring at himself in the mirror, trying to get his hair to lie flat.

Scorpius, who was trying to interest himself in one of Norman's comics, chucked it across the room and crossed Flourish and Blotts off his list. "Dunno."

"I'd say you could come with me and Bridget, but--"

"Al, I have no interest in being your third wheel. None."

"Oh, okay," Al said, giving up on his hair and moving on to the spot that was forming on his chin. Scorpius heaved a sigh and Vanished it for him; in his current state Al would probably get rid of his nose or something similarly catastrophic, as Brilliant Bridget would then not want to be seen in public with him.

"I know Ira's planning on getting sozzled at the Hog's Head," Al offered. "Y'know, since Paul canceled practice and all."

"Yeah, he invited me."

"James'll probably be there, though." Al made a face.

Scorpius saw an opening, and jumped for it. It had been making him sick all week, especially since James hadn't been tackling him into any unoccupied broom closets. For whatever reason. Not that he cared. "So is he taking out that Ravenclaw? Laura, or Lenore, or something?"

"Who?"

"Blonde, sixth-year I think."

"Oh, d'you mean Leonora Llewellyn? Not that I've heard. But with James, who knows. He's probably shagging her all over school but doesn't want it put about that he's got a girl. That's what he did last year, with Evelyn Aristo. D'you know her? She's in Slytherin."

Scorpius felt his stomach turn over, which felt remarkably similar to the aftermath of the Vipertooth. "How do you always know all of this?" he asked, forcing himself to laugh.

"I listen, how d'you think?" Al gave himself a final, appraising look, and headed down to meet Brilliant Bridget.

Scorpius flopped onto his bed and stared at the embroidery in the curtains. There were a unicorn and a lion picked out against the burgundy fabric. Norman came back in, smelling like milky tea and his favorite sticky buns.

"I'm headed down soon, you coming?" He began fumbling around in his trunk, apparently looking for the cloak that was crumpled on his bed. "I saw Al and that Ravenclaw bint on their way out."

"How nice." With a flock of his wand, Scorpius sent Norman's cloak spinning into the center of the room, where it began performing a spirited jig. Norman was still digging around in his trunk. Scorpius sighed. "I'm meeting Ira at the Hog's Head, but we can walk down together if you hurry up."

"You're so kind," Norman sneered. He jumped when he saw the dancing cloak, which Scorpius launched at his face.

"Fine. Go down on your own then." Scorpius rolled to his feet, his own cloak settling obediently around his shoulders, and clattered down the stairs. Norman caught up to him just outside the Fat Lady, cloak fastened under his ear. He said Scorpius was a right git. Scorpius was in no particular mood to dissuade him, although he felt bad about it as soon as they got outside the castle walls.

"You said you wanted to go to Flourish and Blotts, yeah?" he finally asked.

Norman nodded.

"Come by the Hog after, if you want."

"Malfoy," Norman said, "you couldn't pay me to sit there making nice with your bloody Quidditch team. And I know you don't really want me there."

"Of course I--"

Norman snorted. "Don't lie. I know you only want me around when Al's busy."

Scorpius opened his mouth to deny it, then decided not to bother. "As long as you know."

"You're bloody awful, you know?"

"Yeah, well, you put up with it."

They walked the rest of the way to Hogsmeade in silence. Norman didn't bother to say goodbye when he turned into Flourish and Blotts. By the time he got to the Hog's Head, Scorpius was ready to curse the next over-eager third-year who wanted to know where Honeydukes was. He would, he thought, have turned around to go back up to the castle and get in some time on his broom, except that James appeared out of nowhere and pushed him through the door, without saying a word. James strolled over to the table Ira had staked out in a corner, with Rhys, Cara Boot, and Alexandra. Alexandra waved at him enthusiastically. Scorpius heaved a sigh and took a chair from a neighboring table. There wasn't anywhere to put it, except for right next to James.

Ira sloshed him a glass of butterbeer, not pausing in the story he was telling. It appeared to involve three werewolves, a blonde, and the Knight Bus, but Scorpius wasn't paying much attention. Alexandra was laughing a lot, and giving Rhys the bug-eyed stare that he recognized from September. James finished his drink before the punch line, then went up to the bar and returned with another pitcher--not of butterbeer, but of a thick, Muggle-style porter. It tasted like chocolate. Scorpius licked some of the foam off the rim of his glass, then realized that James was looking at him, narrow-eyed, with his lips parted.

Scorpius thought he was going a good job of ignoring him, until he felt James's hand on the inside of his thigh. He jumped. James leaned closer and murmured in his ear, "Let's get out of here." Scorpius shook his head, wondering how no one seemed to be noticing what was happening on their side of the table. James huffed a laugh, breath stirring through his hair.

"Lads, we've got to get back up to the castle." Scorpius didn't understand what was going on until James was already standing, buttoning up a worn Muggle pea coat. "Promised Paul we'd get in some extra time."

Scorpius was opening his mouth to protest, but then he saw the look on Ira's face: knowing. He stood and followed James out of the bar, back up to the castle. It was no surprise when James walked inside, instead of going around to the Quidditch pitch. Scorpius wondered when he'd become someone who followed James Potter around. They went up to the second floor. James told him to wait in front of a map of Argyllshire, then paced back and forth three times. A door appeared on the wall. He pulled it open.

"You coming?"

"Why should I?"

James snorted. "Should be obvious."

"I don't think I will," Scorpius said. He turned and walked away. James grabbed his wrist, spun him back, and kissed him hard. He tasted like the porter from the Hog's Head: rich and bitter. "I said I'm going."

"You always fucking say that." James didn't sound angry. His voice was low and amused, which was the last straw. Scorpius put him in a full Body-Bind and went down to the Quidditch pitch, where he stayed until his fingers were so numb that they could barely clasp on the handle of his broom.


	6. Chapter 6

V

The next week, they beat Slytherin 330-160. In the common room afterwards, Scorpius got rather drunk and charmed one of the paper birds that his father had showed him how to make, when he was much younger. He sent it flapping over to James, who had his arm round Ira's neck and was participating in an off-key rendition of "The Lion Mauled the Snake." James snatched at the bird twice before he caught it, trailing off in the middle of the verse; so much for his vaunted (ex) Seeker's reflexes.

It read--in his defense, Scorpius was really quite drunk, drunker than he'd been the night with Norman and the Vipertooth, which had previously been the drunkest he'd ever been in his life--"if you're not too busy with that Ravenclaw bitch meet me by the tapestry with the trolls doing ballet." Scorpius was not the type to swear, or proposition James Potter. He'd been brought up better than to do either. So he had no explanation for the note, except that he couldn't stop thinking of the taste of chocolate on James's tongue, and the wetness of his mouth.

"That's too bloody far off," James told him outside the Fat Lady. "And you're falling over. We'll never make it."

Scorpius steadied himself on the wall, wondering if Norman's parents hadn't had it right, with their public-school nightmares. Except that he felt no inclination to put on a hat.

"C'mere," James said, and hooked an arm around Scorpius's waist. "Circe's tits, you're heavy."

Scorpius let himself be pulled into James's side. He smelled like Quidditch and Firewhiskey and something smokier. "I don't like you," he said.

"Mhmm. You'd better be glad Ira had some weed or I might get mad."

"What? Why does Ira have weeds?" Scorpius blinked up at James, who snorted.

"'S a magical Muggle plant, don't worry about it."

James pulled him into a classroom, and wouldn't let him cast anything on the door. They ended up sitting on the floor, staring at each other. Scorpius's mouth felt dry. James seemed content to wait for him to do something, which was not like him at all. James uncrossed his legs and stretched them out. His khakis rode up, exposing a strip of ankle between their hems and his oversized trainers. Scorpius put his fingers on this skin, and traced slow, meandering circles against it. Then James made a quiet noise, and Scorpius leaned over his legs and kissed him.

"If," he said, head swimming, "you are shagging that blonde bint I will--"

James laughed into his mouth, eyes half-lidded. "Who?"

Scorpius pulled back. This was, he thought, as if from a great distance, very important. "The blonde one. From last weekend."

"I don't--" James tried to kiss him again, and Scorpius pushed him away.

"I saw you."

"That was nothing."

"I don't believe you," Scorpius said, which in the end was what it came down to.

"Fine." James wound a hand in his tie. "I took her up to the Astronomy Tower and she said she was going to blow me, but then she threw up."

Scorpius tried to push himself away, but James had hold of his tie and wouldn't let go.

"It was foul. I took her back to Ravenclaw. She couldn't answer the question at the door and I bloody well couldn't, so I left her there. Happy?"

"No," he said. He wondered what he was doing here. James was not a nice person, no matter how wonderful he smelled, or how his voice sometimes got deep and perfect and kind; and Scorpius knew what people who weren't nice were like, when they were together.

James was touching his jaw, using his tie to drag him closer so he could kiss him. Scorpius wondered why he was letting this happen, but he didn't stop it as James slowly unbuttoned his shirt, pressing his mouth against every exposed inch of skin. After a while James let his tie go, and Scorpius moved closer.

 

"Where did you and James go?" Al asked when Scorpius was coming in. All of the other fourth-years were asleep, but Al was sitting up with a candle flickering by his bed. There was a book open across his knees; Bridget didn't drink, so he hadn't, either.

Scorpius felt so, so tired. He sat on the foot of Al's bed. "Nowhere," he said. He didn't bother denying that they'd been together. "Beater stuff."

Al kicked at his side from under the quilt his grandmother had sewn for him. "You look like hell."

Scorpius shrugged. He wanted, in that moment, to lie down next to Al and tell him everything. Al would listen, not trying to stop him, and maybe--

"I'm going to bed," he said instead, because that wasn't what would happen.

 

Over Christmas hols, Scorpius Portkeyed back to Rome. The broken umbrella dropped him off in the courtyard of the Gallery. Twinky appeared with a pop next to him, then vanished with his suitcase. One of his mother's house-elves appeared, curtseyed in her monogrammed pillowcase, and led him up to her study.

"Hello, Scorpius," his mother said, laying down her embroidery and rising from her chair. Behind her, the painted thestral snorted and shook its mane. They embraced. She offered him a coffee, as the house-elf brought over an extra chair. They both sat. Scorpius sipped at his coffee, while she asked him about classes, Quidditch, and his friends. The coffee was scalding hot, and burned his tongue. She did not inquire after his father, who had not sent Christmas wishes along with his son.

His mother was going to a party that night. She would have liked him to go along, but he said that he was too tired. She told him that she had to dress, so he left, and padded downstairs to the painting of St. John the Baptist, who at this hour had reverted to Paris.

"It's been a while," Paris said, absently caressing the ram at his side. He slid down from his bench and sat cross-legged on the dirt.

"Yeah." Scorpius flicked his wand, and a chair slid toward him.

"So, how is your school?"

"Good, I guess."

The ram began chewing at Paris's hair. He pushed him away. "You sound less enthusiastic than you have in the past."

Scorpius shrugged. "There's a lot going on."

"Mm." Paris looked at him with his dark eyes, raising a hand to brush a curl off his forehead. "Are you still the best at charms?"

"Yeah."

Paris squinted at him. "I will pretend that you have told me everything you are thinking."

"Let's." Scorpius smiled up at him, gratefully.

Paris caught him up on all of the gossip from the portraits--Innocent X was refusing to sit still during the Dark Hours, as the portraits called them; two nymphs had been caught by another pope, kissing in the Domenichino landscape. "Very scandalous," Paris intoned, "quite disgraceful in a gallery of this caliber." The ram baa-ed its amusement. Scorpius snorted.

"Tomorrow," Paris said, serious again, "will you tell me why you are so sad?"

"I'm not sad." The denial was reflexive. He'd been saying the same thing, more or less, to Al and Norman since the night of the Slytherin match. James, if he had noticed that Scorpius was in any way unhappy, hadn't mentioned it; but then he wouldn't, since they only spoke to each other at Quidditch, when they were yelling about covering Bludgers. The rest of the time they were locked in broom closets or empty classrooms or secret passageways, doing everything to each other but talking. After that night it had seemed--pointless.

"I wish you wouldn't lie to me."

Scorpius would have denied that, too, but Paris was looking at him with the sorrow of centuries. "It's hard not to."

"I understand."

 

His mother kept him busy in Via Curva the next morning, in and out of shops, being poked with tailors' needles and measured for robes that he wouldn't wear. Various acquaintances commented on how handsome he was, or expressed surprise that the English gloom and inferior diet did not appear to have stunted his growth. He smiled and kept his mouth shut, while his mother returned compliments and chatted about the Ministry's move for greater controls on the winged-horse trade. Italian swirled around his ears, like the golden coins that performing witches conjured in the streets. When his mother was caught in a deep conversation with a well-dressed witch about her stable of Abraxans, Scorpius excused himself to the bookstore.

It was called la Pagina che Canta. He could remember visiting it with his mother, as a child. She would let him pull all the picture-books of the shelves, and leave them scattered on the floor until he'd picked the ones he wanted. He had walked all over them, leaving footprints on the brightly-printed covers and sending their shepherds and fluffy white sheep fleeing.

The shopkeeper, a spry wizard with a large handlebar moustache, didn't appear to recognize him. Scorpius nodded in his direction and headed for the Charms section, marked by a floating marquee inked in silver. The store was full of wizards and witches doing last-minute Christmas shopping, and he dodged running children that threatened to do more damage to the books than he ever had.

Charms turned out to be right next to a more discretely-labeled section, Self-Help. Scorpius snorted and picked up a volume entitled _Modern Charming_. He flicked it open to a chapter on memory charms, which, since that first day in the library, he'd found rather fascinating. And there was also a chapter on invisibility, which might be useful for sneaking around the castle snogging James.

He slammed the book back onto the shelf as soon as the words "snogging" and "James" filtered through his mind. If he had been the type, he would have sworn. He had wanted to get his head right over the hols--two weeks without the temptation of James's lips against his jaw, or his hands fumbling at his belt buckle. Two weeks to remind himself of how James had left Leonora Llewellyn in front of the door to the Ravenclaw common room, how he still called Norman a fat faggot. (Not, his conscience twinged, sounding like Al, that you've told him not to.) How this was never, ever going to work out, in any way that would be good for either of them.

" _Accio_ a-book-that-will-make-my-life-less-of-a-disaster," he snapped at the Self-Help shelf. The spines of a few books twitched, but none of them must have been up to the task--they all stayed firmly on their shelf.

He snatched up _Modern Charming_ and stalked back towards the check-out counter. He ended up in line behind a chubby wizard wearing a polka-dotted top hat. If his mother had been there, they would have been ushered straight to the front. Such was the order of life in wizarding Italy.

"Put it on the Doria Pamphilj account," he ordered the proprietor's handlebar moustache, adding "please" before remembering he wasn't in England any more.

The wizard's eyes widened. "Of course, Signore."

His mother swept in the door just as he was walking out. "Finished already?" she asked.

"Yes, Mother."

The handlebar moustache popped up at her elbow. "Signora Doria Pamphilj, a pleasure, and may I convey to you my warmest wishes for the Christmas season?"

"Yes, thank you, give your wife my best." His mother inclined her head and then inquired after a periodical on blood thestrals. It was produced with great haste. They left. Scorpius looked over his shoulder, back towards the pine-draped windows of the bookshop. The wizard in the polka-dotted hat was just leaving, a much younger witch who might be his daughter on his arm. They were laughing together.

 

Christmas passed quietly, his father sending his regrets that he would be unable to join them in Rome. When the letter arrived, Scorpius's mother read it, then tossed it onto his lap without comment. Scorpius went upstairs, got tanked on eggnog with Twinky, and wrote Al a letter that read:

Al,  
Hope you're having a merry Christmas. I can't stop thinking about your brother. If you could tell me something horrifically embarrassing about his childhood, maybe that would help. Or maybe it wouldn't. I see him embarrass himself every time we're together and doesn't help.

Is it snowing in London? It's so much warmer here that it doesn't feel like Christmas. My father couldn't tear himself away from the peacocks to come down here. Or maybe Mother wouldn't let him come. I don't know.

Yours,  
SM

He realized after he'd finished it that he'd written it in Italian, and anyway it wasn't the sort of letter he would send to Al, or anyone. He tossed it into the air, murmured _Incendio_ , and watched it burn. It left a smudge of grey ash that slowly filtered down to the carpet. Twinky tripped over the edge of the rug and fell on her nose before she managed to clean it up.

 

Scorpius woke up to a hangover, and the news that they would be going to the lake villa for New Years. Perhaps because of the headache, he told his mother he would rather snap his wand than spend two minutes in the presence of Dearest Cousin Adalberto. His mother raised her carefully-plucked eyebrows and puckered her mouth. As far as Scorpius could remember, this was the first time he had ever directly resisted one of her directives.

After a moment, in which Scorpius flattened the urge to flee from the room--he was a Gryffindor, damn it--she said, "I don't care if you use the Cruciatus Curse on him. But you will be there."

That was the end of it.

Before they left, he went back to see Paris again. He didn't ask where Scorpius had been, or press him for details--just smiled at him, sadly, and wished him a happy New Year, while the ram nuzzled at his dark curls.

 

His aunt had filled the villa with boughs of pine and holly, and glittering drifts of enchanted snow. Ice sculptures of nymphs and satyrs twisted and cavorted out onto the long porch. Scorpius rested his arms on the stone railing and looked out over the dark water of Lake Como, at the bulk of the mountain rising above it. Through the doors behind him, his aunt's New Year's ball was in full swing. House-elves circulated with flutes of champagne on silver salvers. There was a wizarding jazz band, imported from New Orleans, and the wail of the saxophone drifted through the cold night air.

He heard footsteps behind him. "Scorpius, the Minister has inquired after you," his mother said in her low voice. She was holding a glass of champagne with one hand; she was pressing her silver fox coat closed with the other. The fox's mask stared down from her shoulder with dead, glassy eyes. The toe of her shoe almost brushed against Adalberto's knee, where he quivered, spelled invisible, on the paving stones. "And your Aunt Crocifissa was wondering if you had seen Adalberto."

"Not recently."

Her red lips quirked. "Thank you for not lying to me." She held out her arm, and he settled her small gloved hand into the crook of his elbow. They went back into the party, where Scorpius danced with old witches to make his mother happy. One of them taught him the Charleston, which had been, she said, _the very thing_ in her day. The other cousins were, he knew, going down to the boathouse to drink firewhiskey and smoke pilfered Muggle cigarettes; doubtless Adalberto would join them--Scorpius hadn't been particularly firm with his _Petrificus Totalus_ , and it was the first invisibility spell he'd cast on a living target, so he doubted that it would last. Adalberto would go down to the boathouse, and in the flickering light of the conjured flames that were, after all this time, his specialty, tell the cousins how vicious and uncivilized England had made Scorpius.

Scorpius tried not to care. His conscience, still sounding like Al, was much easier to ignore here.

 

When people at Hogwarts asked how his hols were, Scorpius said they were "nice." He told Al that his father had stayed in Wiltshire; he told Norman that he'd put a Body-Bind on Adalberto and left him outside to get frostbite, because Norman had a nasty streak and appreciated things like that. (As long as they didn't come from someone named James.)

Scorpius had reached no conclusions as far as James was concerned.


	7. Chapter 7

VI

The Tuesday after they got back to Hogwarts, Scorpius opened his Transfiguration text and a torn-off scrap of paper fell out. Orion picked it up and handed it to him.

"Thanks." Scorpius unfolded it. Firm handwriting inked itself across the page: _stay up on the Tower after Astronomy_. He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Transfiguration dragged, as it usually did. Scorpius's hedgehog proved to be an energetic one, and kept running over the edge of his desk; Professor Catapult wouldn't let him put a Body-Bind on it, either, since the charm would apparently interfere with the integrity of the transfiguration. ("As, Mr. Malfoy, you would know if you had done the reading for the second week of class." Which Scorpius had done; if James had not distracted him with the note, he would have remembered.) By the end of the class, the hedgehog was no closer to being a pincushion than it had been when Scorpius had taken it out of the box on Professor Catapult's desk.

During his free period before dinner, Scorpius tried to do his Astronomy homework, but ended up having a wank in his deserted dormitory. _Stay up on the Tower after Astronomy_. The cheek. It would serve James right if he didn't, if he came tripping back to the common room, listening to Al and Bridget go on about whether advances in Muggle astronomy were relevant to wizarding star lore. (That's what Bridget called it--"star lore." He supposed it was a Ravenclaw thing, or maybe it was a stuck-up bint thing.) He could sit on the couch by the fireplace and have a game of Exploding Snap with Orion, Alexandra, and Justin. James could go find a Hufflepuff.

Scorpius took his hand out of his pants and closed his eyes. This wasn't working. He felt jittery, and unable to concentrate on anything, not even wanking over James Potter, which had held his attention well enough over the hols. He skipped dinner, because he couldn't stand to sit there at the Gryffindor table and listen to James and Ira joke about Professors McGonagall and Catapult's illicit, wrinkly love.

Al brought him a sandwich at Quidditch, because Al was a considerate person and Scorpius should aspire to be as lovely as he was. Scorpius shoved it down his throat and tried to kill James with his mind, which shouldn't be completely impossible, except that he wasn't much good at wandless magic. (Yet.) He tried to break various bones via Quidditch instead, but James kept noticing the Bludgers careening at his face in the nick of time. This would prompt Paul to go red in the face, and James to _smirk_.

"Malfoy, Potter," Paul yelled at the end of practice. "I thought we'd gotten over this."

James said, "It's not my fault that he forgot how aim a Bludger over hols. But I'm sure Scorp would never do that on purpose." Scorpius thought he was aiming for an angelic smile, but it was not an expression he had ever seen him perform, so he wasn't sure.

In response, Scorpius crossed his arms and glared.

"I'm glad one of you is willing to be the bigger man about this," Paul growled through clenched teeth.

"Hear that?" James said after Paul had stomped off to redirect his ire at the misfiring reserve Chasers. "Even Paul knows that I'm the _bigger man_." James grinned. "Get it?"

"Do you think I'm _mentally retarded_." Scorpius thought he did a passable job of hissing that out, despite the lack of sibilants; it was something his father was exceptionally good at. "Enjoy your right hand tonight."

After he'd said that, James kind of stared at him for a second. Scorpius realized that it was the first time he'd verbally acknowledged their--thing. Ever. (Except for that one time to Norman, which hadn't counted.) Then James smiled, the slow turning of his mouth and the squeezing of his eyes that liquefied Scorpius's knees, regardless of how much he wanted to turn him into a kipper and throw him to the giant squid.

"Yeah, I will," he murmured, his voice doing the low rasp that was like catmint for Scorpius's personal Kneazle, "and I hope you'll be there to enjoy it with me." Then he strolled off to the locker rooms.

Scorpius threw a Bat-Bogey Hex after him, but he was rattled enough that he missed. James lifted a lazy hand in response to the rush of magic over his shoulder.

 

"Why did you try to hex James?" Al asked as they walked back up to the castle.

"He annoys me."

"Yeah, well. It's just that Ira said Paul saw you."

"Paul can go screw himself," Scorpius said, with feeling.

"Scorpius! Did you just _swear_?" Al crowed.

"Shut it." Scorpius waved a hair-drying charm in Al's direction. "You're going to catch a head cold, you daft thing."

"Thanks _Mum_." Al rolled his eyes. Then he asked if his hair looked okay, because he was going to study with Bridget before Astronomy.

Scorpius turned it blue in response, because it had been that kind of day. Al howled like a banshee and tried to hit him round the ears, until he turned it back.

Al huffed off towards the library. Scorpius followed him, because he wasn't done with his homework, and the library was as good a place to work on it as any. Also Scorpius didn't need Divination to know that James wouldn't be caught anywhere near that many books.

 

Astronomy passed more slowly than Transfiguration. Scorpius kept going back and forth with himself: would he stay, wouldn't he. It would serve James right if he didn't. He wasn't some-- _girl_ or whatever, to wait around on missives slipped inside textbooks. But every time he convinced himself that he was going to go back to the Common Room, he would remember the way James had said _and I hope you'll be there to enjoy it with me_.

And then he would have to think about Professor McGonagall wearing a bustier and doing a little dance for Professor Catapult, whilst trying to hide his crotch behind a telescope.

At the end of the class, Scorpius dropped his notebook in the shadow of the parapet. He chatted with Alexandra (who seemed to have finally got over herself) as they wound down the staircase to the base of the Tower, then feigned realizing the forgotten notebook and jogged back up to the observation deck. Professor Sinistra was just shutting the trapdoor behind herself.

"Sorry, Professor, left my notebook."

She inclined her head and waved the door open again. "See that you shut it behind you."

"Yes, Professor." He watched her long, gold-spangled robes sweep down the stairs. She didn't look back. He retrieved his notebook, then started casting every wind-breaking and warming charm he could think of; it was freezing, with the January wind howling up from the lake. Alexandra had said it was supposed to sleet the next day. He could believe it. The night was still clear enough for them to use the observation deck, instead of having a classroom lecture (not that Professor Sinistra kept her room much warmer; she believed that cold sharpened the mind), but heavy clouds were gathering along the horizon.

Scorpius had just finished conjuring a floating globe of blue flames when the trapdoor swung open. James emerged through it. Scorpius watched him, quietly, from where he sat behind the whirling, jellylike ball of magic fire. The blue light threw odd shadows up on James' face.

"'S warm up here," he said, sounding surprised.

"I didn't feel like freezing." Scorpius held his palms up to the fire. "You should have thought of that before you dragged me up here."

"I didn't drag you anywhere." James flopped down next to him. He was wearing his Muggle coat again, and a pair of mittens that looked hand-knit, probably by the Grandmother Weasley.

"You're wearing your coat, obviously you realized it would be cold. And I'd be in front of the fire in the Common Room if it weren't for you."

"This fire is fine." James pulled off his mittens and shoved them in a pocket. "You've gotten it quite steamy up here, anyway."

Scorpius considered banishing the fire, just to be contrary.

"Can you do anything about the floor? It's bloody freezing."

"We're outside. In January. Of course it's cold."

James sighed. "So can you do anything about it?"

"Maybe." He concentrated, then carefully drew the tip of his wand up, down, and through a modified hot-air charm, against the floor. The stone rippled, as if a heat wave had rolled over it, then warmed. Scorpius tucked his wand back into his robe, and splayed his fingers out over the stone, ignoring the fact that James looked impressed, despite himself.

"Al says you're good at Charms," he said, after a while.

"Where did Leonora throw up?"

"What?"

"That Ravenclaw. The one you brought up here to--" Scorpius steeled himself "--suck your cock."

"Fuck," said James. "You would bring that up."

Scorpius shrugged. He felt no particular urge to make this easier for James; James made it hard enough for him.

"Look, I'm not your boyfriend," James said. "It's none of your business what I do."

"You're right."

"Then why--" James rubbed a hand through his hair. "Why the hell would you bring it up?"

Scorpius pulled his knees up to his chest. "You aren't my boyfriend, but it's hard to be with someone that treats other people like that." He addressed the fire instead of James, not believing that those words had come out of his mouth. They sounded like things that Al would say, not Scorpius, who was still punishing his cousin for something he'd done when they were eleven, who was terrible to Norman because Norman didn't have enough friends not to take it. But he had seen how this could go, every time he Portkeyed, alone, between Wiltshire and Rome.

"It's not like I forced her." It sounded like James was getting angry. "It's not my fault she threw up on herself and passed out before she could get the door to her bloody common room open."

Scorpius couldn't think of anything to say, so he didn't say anything.

"And you won't, so it's not as if you can complain if I look somewhere else."

Scorpius laughed; he couldn't help himself, even though it wasn't funny at all. James was just such a caricature of an arse, the kind of person that would get punished by the righteous superhero in one of Norman's comics. The thought of him pursuing Leonora Llewellyn because he, Scorpius, hadn't deigned to _suck his cock_ \--it was too much. As if Scorpius didn't know that James couldn't care less who sucked it, as long as it got done.

"What, you berk?"

"As if that's got anything to do with it," Scorpius said, when he could get a breath. "You're--you know what, I have no words."

"Bloody shock." If he wasn't mistaken, James appeared to be sulking. Apparently he didn't like being laughed at for anything but his Professor McGonagall impression.

"Oh, come on," Scorpius said, rolling his eyes. "I know what you're here for." He was surprised at his own boldness. When James didn't move, he was even more surprised that he crawled over to him, on his hands and knees, and pinned him back onto the spell-warmed stone. James made a lovely sound when Scorpius pulled open the neck of his coat and bit down on his collarbone, hard. It didn't last long for either of them, but then it usually didn't.

When Scorpius came back to himself, James was kissing him slowly, and the blue fire had gone out. He realized, in a sort of abstract way, that even without the fire he was warm and comfortable, lying on the Astronomy Tower with various parts of his body tangled through James's limbs, and his trousers unzipped. James had a hand under his jumper, and his fingers were stroking up and down his side. It tickled a little, but nothing--horrifically unpleasant.

"I'd probably do it if you asked me nicely," he mumbled into James's mouth.

James's fingers stilled, then resumed. "I knew there was a reason I took up with you." James sounded sleepy and content. He kissed Scorpius again, then let his head fall back against the stone. He muttered something else, eyes closing.

"What?"

"I said, Llewellyn was a bloody sloppy kisser anyway."

Scorpius put his head on James's chest, one of the big pea coat buttons digging into his cheek. He wondered if this was what it was supposed to be like, being with someone: he could smell come on his hands, and he was terrified to be there in the way that he was there, listening to James's heartbeat and the lazy comfort in his voice, that could so easily be taken as affection. He was only ever like this after sex (or what passed for sex between them). Sometimes before, a little bit, if he was in the right mood.

It wasn't enough, for anything, but Scorpius didn't know how to stop this thing between them. (And even if he had, he didn't know that he would have done it.)

 

"Did your notebook learn how to sprout wings and fly around the top of the tower like a Snitch?" Al asked him when he finally got back to their dormitory, kissed soundly and a little shaky around the knees.

"You know I'm no good at Transfiguration." Scorpius pulled off his cloak and hung it up.

"Yeah Malfoy, where were you? It's bloody two in the morning," Justin piped up from his own bed.

Scorpius shucked his school robes and stood there in trousers and his wrinkled shirt, which for some reason smelled like James's hair. (Soap and Quidditch leathers.) "Went to the Charms room to practice," he said at last, then added, "and so why are you lot all awake then?"

Justin groaned. "You're foul, you know? What did you get on the exam last year, 120?"

"So what did you practice?" Al asked, once Justin had lost interest and started bothering Orion about how he'd asked Rose for a spare pen in Transfiguration. (Orion had his curtains shut and groaned through them that he was trying to sleep, and could Scorpius do a Silencing Charm for him, as his hadn't been working lately.)

Scorpius unbuttoned his shirt, ignoring Orion. "Heating Charms."

"You've known how to do a Heating Charm since last spring." Al sounded profoundly skeptical.

"I got it converted to work for solid objects. Like the floor. So you'll never have to complain about your feet freezing in the bathroom, okay?"

Al looked as though he was ready to pursue that line of inquiry--he'd narrowed his eyes and tensed his mouth, resembling James for a second, except James usually looked less concerned and more diabolical. But then Eddie burst in the door, yelping that he'd just seen Rhys snogging Alexandra of all people. Justin rolled his eyes and told him that everyone with a brain knew they'd been dating since the last Hogsmeade weekend. Al could have used the cover of the noise to subject him to a more thorough interrogation, but he must have chosen not to.

As Scorpius climbed into bed, he wondered what he would say if Al ever pushed the issue. _Sorry I've been coming back late so much but I've been busy snogging your brother? Because even though I don't like him all that much, he's a good kisser?_

No good ideas were forthcoming. He thought hard about his curtains closing, and they stirred, but didn't move. Scorpius sighed and yanked them shut. He was exhausted, anyway, and thought he had bruises on his knees from crawling all over the top of the tower. And maybe frostbite as well; it had taken them a long time to come down, even after the warming charms had started wearing off. (Scorpius hadn't wanted to re-cast them. That would have been too much like he and James were purposefully extending their time together. So he'd let his fingers freeze, until James had pulled them into his warm, deep pockets.)

 

"Am I really that bad of a person?" James asked him, perhaps a week later. They were in the prefect's bathroom--how James had gotten the password, or even knew where it was, Scorpius didn't know, as James wasn't a prefect and didn't associate with those who were. (He was more likely to steal their History of Magic homework off a table in the common room, and try to get Scorpius to charm the handwriting to look like his own.) But it was very late at night, and peaceful with the sounds of water splashing on tiles. The only light came from a crescent moon, barely visible through a large skylight made of rippled glass. There was a picture of a mermaid, but she was asleep, curled up with her tailfin across her face.

James was playing with all the taps, and at first Scorpius hadn't even realized that he'd spoken. He was still sitting on the edge of the bath, trailing his toes through the silver, shimmering bubbles that had spilled out over the surface of the water.

"Well, you aren't that nice one of one," Scorpius answered, at last. He was surprised that James had brought that up. They hadn't talked much, outside of snarling at each other at Quidditch, since the night up on the Astronomy Tower. James had sent him notes, in a variety of embarrassingly obvious ways (via owl; stuck in the seat of the chair he usually took in the common room; in a failed paper-bird charm, which had died halfway across the hall and nearly been picked up by the Head Boy, a rather humorless Slytherin). Scorpius had gone where these notes had indicated, to find James waiting to drag him behind tapestries or hidden doors, by tie or belt-loop. Very little of this had involved speaking with each other.

"See," James said, turning off the last tap, and wading over to Scorpius, "the thing is my dad is Harry Potter."

Scorpius didn't know why James would say that.

James pushed his knees apart, and stepped in between them. He rested his elbows on Scorpius's thighs; they were quite sharp, but Scorpius didn't tell him to move them. James put his wet fingers on Scorpius's hipbones, leaving smears of little silver bubbles across his skin. He told Scorpius's chest that the children of Harry Potter were not bad people, that they were model wizarding youth. He sounded very tired, and not at all like himself. Scorpius wrapped his legs around James's torso and pulled him in, letting his forehead fall against his chest. He didn't know what else there was he could do. He could tell James what the children of Death Eaters were like, how they tortured their cousins and ordered their house-elves to drink with them, so they wouldn't have to be drunk alone on Christmas day; that they were terrified of the cellars in their father's houses, and the hash-marks scratched into their walls, and the bloodstain on the floor in the parlor, that had to be covered by a rug because no cleaning spell would remove it; but telling James Potter these things would not do anything, for either of them.

James tangled a hand in his hair, and drew him down to kiss him. Scorpius closed his eyes and felt their tongues move together, curling around and over and against. The angle was odd, and he thought James was probably hurting his neck, but then he stopped thinking when James wrapped a hand around him. His hand was hot from the water, slippery from all of the bubbles. Scorpius made a small noise, and James moaned back. His hand kept moving, slowly, up and down, and then he was kissing along Scorpius's jaw, down his throat. Scorpius looked down at him, at the dark head moving down his chest.

"Are you--" He didn't recognize his own voice. It sounded so breathy, and so very small, in the great yawning space, where even the lap of the water against the edge of the pool sounded loud.

James made a shushing noise into his navel. He pushed him over, until Scorpius was sprawled out on his back, looking up at the skylight with his knees over the lip of the pool and James sucking a bruise into the skin over his hipbone. Scorpius gasped, again, as James trailed his mouth lower, then licked him, one long stripe from bottom to top. He didn't know what to do with his hands but he needed something to touch, so he slid them into James's hair, massaging circles into his scalp. James hummed his appreciation and Scorpius quivered, all of his body and mind centered on this one thing, this one place, and the feel of James's mouth, sliding over the head of his cock. He must have tried to take down too much, because he gagged and coughed; Scorpius repeated, "Are you--" and James hushed him a second time (which wasn't right either; James should have told him to shut the bloody fuck up, but everything was so strange, here in the moonlight and water) and tried again.

Scorpius tried to breathe, curling his fingers against James's scalp. James was swirling his tongue around the head of his cock, still working his hand up and down the shaft. It felt like nothing in the world, like light and tension and heat. 

"James," he said, "James, I'm--"

James hummed around him again, and Scorpius shook, body lifting off the tiles like the arch of a bow.

He came back to himself slowly: the skylight, the coolness of the tile, the warmth of the water around his calves, and James lingering between his legs, hair half-wet and plastered against his face. His cheeks were flushed and his lips were swollen red. He looked young, with his hair in his eyes and his thumbs pressed into the skin inside Scorpius's thighs. He was kneading slowly, his eyes narrowed like a cat's, and even that made Scorpius shiver.

He wriggling off the tiles and into the water, wrapping a leg around James's hips. James made a pleased noise into his neck. Scorpius reached down and took him in hand. He could feel James shuddering against him, the hot, thin skin of his cock underneath all of the bubbles. He thought James might demand some kind of reciprocity, but he didn't--just thrust into his hand and bit his shoulder as he came. Scorpius stroked his back and waited for James to say something, smearing bubbles over the breadth of his shoulders, the divots in his lower back. After a while James kissed him; it was strange tasting his own bitterness in James's mouth, which usually reminded him of mint toothpaste or whatever had been on Gryffindor's table for dinner.

He didn't know how long they stood there, kissing each other in the steaming, waist-deep water of the bath, but he thought it was a long time, because the moon had left the skylight when they climbed out. They dripped all over the floor and James swore at the coldness of the tiles. Scorpius shoved a towel in his face to shut him up, which somehow turned into him rubbing James's hair dry, while James wriggled like a Kneazle and tried to tickle him. That turned into Scorpius pinning him to the wall and kissing him again, because he was sure he had gone mad, and James was damp and warm, smelling of clean skin and soap. James moaned into his mouth as their cocks rubbed against each other. Scorpius felt his knees buckling, until they hit the abandoned towel. Before he could give himself time to be nervous he gripped the familiar weight of James's cock, and slid the head into his mouth. James shuddered and moaned again, loud in the silence of the bath.

It was strange and awkward and Scorpius's jaw started hurting, but he kept going. James was choking out things like "god" and "yeah" and "fuck," and his hips kept twitching forward, until Scorpius put his forearm across them to keep him still. James didn't give him any warning before he came; Scorpius choked, coughing, but James slid down to the floor and pulled in, kissing every part of him that he could reach: his eyelid, his temple, the corner of his mouth. Then they were blinking at each other in the dark room, blue into hazel.

James said, "Come here, you," and cupped his hand around the back of Scorpius's skull.

"I'm not going anywhere else," Scorpius whispered against his lips. He felt like bolting as soon as he'd said it, but James tightened his fingers, and Scorpius could feel his mouth curving up into a smile.

"Damn right you aren't." James sounded lazy, pleased. He took his time getting Scorpius off, slow mouth and slower hands, until he was a shaking mess, barely keeping his teeth clenched shut over all of _pleases_ and _pleas_ that were running through his head.

 

There was a mirror near where they'd left their clothes. Scorpius stood in front of it, performing his usual check for hickeys or other visible signs of James's would-be affections. His torso looked long and pale, almost blending in with the tiles, and the purpling bruise on the inside of his hip stood out sharp against the January pallor of his skin. He took out his wand and touched its tip against the bruise, mouth shaping " _Episkey_ ," but then James appeared in the mirror behind him. He wrapped a proprietary arm around Scorpius's neck, and leaned his chin against his shoulder.

"Leave it," he said into the side of Scorpius's neck.

Scorpius raised his wand to the bite mark on his shoulder.

"That one, too."

"Please, Potter," Scorpius muttered. "That's ridiculous."

James tightened his grip. "Leave them."

"I am not _leaving them_. Do you want everyone on the Quidditch team to see?"

"They'd just be jealous." James smirked over his shoulder, digging his fingers into the bite mark.

"Ouch."

James kissed his temple. He glared; he hated it when James showed off the fact that he was taller, by a good three inches. (But then Scorpius hadn't hit his growth spurt yet, which Al swore was coming; and then the Potters had better watch out--height ran in both sides of Scorpius's family, and, to the best that he'd been able to determine, only occasionally amongst the Potter-Weasley horde.) He shoved James's fingers aside with his wand and performed the charm. The reddened mark faded into his skin.

"Leave the other one," James whispered into his hair. "I like seeing it on you."

Scorpius could feel himself blushing, which he hated. He put away his wand and tugged on his jumper, a navy cashmere one he'd convinced his mother to buy him for Christmas, even though it wasn't remotely robe-like. (His mother did not believe that well-bred wizards were spotted out of doors in anything but well-tailored robes. Despite her own elegance, she'd never been willing to understand that everyone Scorpius's age wore Muggle clothes, only donning robes when forced by school dress code or parental fiat.)

James finished buttoning up his own shirt. "Shall we?" He pulled something out of his pocket--it looked like a piece of parchment, Scorpius couldn't really see--glanced at it, and then gestured Scorpius through the door. It was late enough that they didn't bother to stagger their arrival back in the common room; sure enough, it was empty when they climbed through the portrait hole, and the fire had burned down to embers.

James started up the stairs. Scorpius grabbed his wrist, pulled him back, and kissed him, quickly, then slipped past and ran up the spiral staircase.

Once he was in the comforting darkness of his bed, curtains drawn firmly against the world, he wondered what he'd been thinking. Kissing James like that, doing-- _that_ with James. He felt exhausted all of a sudden, but it was a long time before he got to sleep: he couldn't stop thinking of the feel of James's mouth, and the possessiveness in his eyes in the mirror as he'd said _Leave them_. Or Scorpius had thought it looked like possessiveness. He had no way of knowing, really.


	8. Chapter 8

VII

Scorpius was brushing his teeth the next morning, towel wrapped around his hips, when Al came in. He usually didn't shower in the morning--he'd just get disgusting again at Quidditch later--but he'd twisted around all night, smelling James on his skin, in his hair, and he couldn't face the thought of looking Al in the eye whilst reeking of sex with his brother. His eyes felt scummy and dry.

Clearly, this was what James did to him: made him miserable.

"What is _that_?" Al asked.

Scorpius winced, then spat out his mouthful of toothpaste. "What?"

"You know."

"Hit myself on a table," Scorpius lied, flattening the urge to pull up the towel. That would be as good as an admission of guilt; and his mother had told him, before he'd gotten on the Hogwarts Express for the first time, never to admit to anything.

"Fuck, Scorp, is that a hickey?" Norman asked, bumbling out of the shower. He always got dressed before he came out of the shower stall, and he looked awkward, standing there in his crumpled school clothes with a wet towel in one hand.

"It's a bruise," Scorpius said, "from the corner of a table." He rinsed off his toothbrush and put it back in his kit, then pointed his wand at his head and mouthed a drying charm. Al and Norman were looking at him with identically dubious expressions. His reflection frowned and said in a motherly tone, "Well, it does rather look like a hickey, dear." Scorpius blinked at it; he wasn't the sort of person who got back-chat from mirrors. He considered cursing it, but again--admission of guilt.

"Fuck you, it's a hickey!" Norman sounded delighted. "Down there! Who--"

"It is from a table and I am not talking about this," Scorpius announced, and swept out of the bathroom.

 

In Care of Magical Creatures, Professor Weasley told them to find a partner, and set them to identifying and drawing bowtruckles. Scorpius tried very hard to be Prudence's partner, as she wasn't the inquisitive sort, but Al rolled his eyes, shoved a box (containing a combination of twigs and a bowtruckle) into his arms, and dragged him off towards the edge of the field.

"Please explain this," Al said. He sounded like Professor McGonagall.

"Explain what?" Scorpius fidgeted with a twig.

"You never shower in the morning."

"I decided to today."

"You also vanish," Al pronounced, "and sneak back in looking all--guilty."

"I do not!'

"Yes, you do!"

"What about you and Bridget, then?" he snapped. "Suppose you're never out of the common room because of her."

Al had the grace to flush. "That's different. We aren't sneaking around."

"Who says I'm sneaking around?" Scorpius snapped the twig, which fortunately did not turn out to be a bowtruckle. Usually he was quite good at Care of Magical Creatures--along with Charms and Defense (which was just the nastier bits of Charms, plus the nastier bits of Care Of), it was his favorite subject. But today was not, as was becoming more and more apparent, his day.

"Oh, everyone in the year," Al drawled. Scorpius chucked the bits of stick at his face, because he sounded like James. Unfortunately, Al had very good reflexes, and caught them. "Every time you're out Justin's taking bets on whoever you're off with. Odds are it's Madeira Alvarez."

"Who?"

"Merlin, you're oblivious! Slytherin? Our year? With the hair and the lips?"

"Oh, their Seeker?"

Al rolled his eyes. "So not Madeira Alvarez."

"Listen," Scorpius said, glaring at a nearby pair of Hufflepuffs, "it's--" He stopped. It was what? Complicated? Difficult? Confusing? He didn't have a problem with sneaking all over the castle with another boy (both Malfoys and Doria Pamphiljs had long enough histories of it, anyway), and he doubted that Al would, either, what with all the stories that got told about his beloved Uncle Professor Charlie Weasley. He had a problem with the particular boy that he was sneaking all over the castle _with_.

"It's what?" The more contentious Al started to get, the more he looked like James.

"How's it coming over here?" Professor Weasley asked from behind him. Scorpius jumped, knocking over the box and spilling its contents all over the grass. The bowtruckle jumped to its little bowtruckle feet and sprinted off towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Scorpius managed to hit it with Impedimenta, but only just. Al glowered and dropped the bowtruckle back in the box, where its skinny legs continued to move in slow motion.

"Al, remember that the bowtruckle can feel pain, the same as you do," Professor Weasley said. "Be gentle next time."

"Yeah, Uncle Charlie," Al grumbled.

Professor Weasley raised an eyebrow, creasing his freckled forehead. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Not at all," Scorpius said through gritted teeth. He ended the spell on the bowtruckle, which resumed acting like a twig. "Al, you're better at drawing."

Professor Weasley raised the other eyebrow. "Let me know if you need any help."

"Yes, Professor."

 

Al didn't say another word to him for the rest of Care Of, and ostentatiously dragged Bridget to the other side of the room in History of Magic. At lunch, Scorpius ended up sitting between Rhys and Prudence, which virtually guaranteed a silent meal--Rhys was too busy nuzzling Alexandra to talk, and Prudence didn't talk, ever, which sometimes made her Scorpius's favorite person at Hogwarts. Al had planted himself firmly across from Paul, between James and Ira, which he only did on the rare occasion that he wanted to prove to the entire school how bloody cool he was.

Scorpius snorted into his ham sandwich. If only he knew.

"Oi, Malfoy!" James called from the other end of the table.

"What?" Scorpius snarled back. Prudence inched backwards, out of his way.

"Can I have the ham?"

Scorpius looked from the platter of sliced ham sitting in front of him, to the platter of sliced ham by James's elbow. "Whatever." He levitated it off the table (which would get him points deducted if any of the professors saw; it was a Gryffindor-specific rule that food stayed on the tables, at all times--apparently James and Ira'd done something to merit this their second year) and sent it shooting off towards the other end of the table. Several first-years dived under the table to avoid ham slices.

"Mr. Malfoy! Five points from Gryffindor!" Professor Catapult barked from the high table.

Scorpius slammed the ham platter down in front of James, then shoved his wand in his pocket and tore a bite off his sandwich, pretending it was a Potter jugular--at this point he didn't care which one, particularly, except that he would probably let Lily off, as she was over in Slytherin and had never attempted to make his life _suck_.

For lack of a more appropriate word.

Not that he wanted to think about _sucking_.

"Look out!" someone yelped. Scorpius barely had time to dodge the returning platter ("Mr. Potter! _Ten points from Gryffindor_!") as it swerved back to its former resting place. Of course there was a bloody note stuck between the slices. Scorpius snatched it up, shoved it in his pocket despite the fact that it was coated in grease and ham juice, and stormed out of the Great Hall.

For the first time in his life, ever, he skived off from a class. He went out to the lake, far enough away from the school that no roving, professorial eyes would catch sight of him. He felt a little guilty about skipping, especially as it was Charms, but he'd already got the hang of heating spells, and the class was supposed to spend the rest of the week on them. So Professor Flitwick might take off points, but he probably wouldn't get detention.

This time of year, the edges of the lake were rimmed in ice. He tried to skip a few rocks anyway, but it didn't work. So he just sat there, watching the dullness of the gray water blend into the gray heather of the hills. It was freezing, but he didn't cast any heating charms; they made him think of James, and the top of the Astronomy Tower.

He took out the note and shredded it methodically. The paper felt slimy between his fingers. He chucked the pieces out over the lake; the wind caught them, and spun them back towards the shore.

 

He didn't end up going to Muggle Studies, either, even though his hands were so numb that he could barely curl them around the end of his wand. The wind coming off the lake was bitterly cold. He thought of the warm, bright Great Hall, of listening to James's laugh rising from the other end of the table. And sitting next to Al, who would make eyes at Bridget from across the room, but still manage to keep up with whatever was going on at their own table.

"What the hell are you doing out here? It's bloody freezing."

Scorpius turned his head. Norman was trudging closer, swaddled in coat, scarf, and hat, looking like a chubby, irked pigeon.

"Nothing," he said.

"Don't believe you." Norman shoved him over and sat on the rock.

"Norman, I'm not going to tell you anything."

"So you're admitting that there's something to tell."

Scorpius pulled his knees up to his chest. "No."

"If that's the way you want to be."

They sat in silence for a while. After a while, Scorpius asked how Charms had gone; Norman said it had been fine, and that he'd told Flitwick that Scorpius had gone to the Hospital Wing. Scorpius didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd probably get in trouble over it--there were ways to check on things like that.

"What's it like?"

"What's what like?"

"Scorp, you've got a bloody hickey on your stomach. What d'you think I'm asking about."

"Oh." Scorpius raised his wand and cast a Heating Charm, because Norman looked miserably cold, even if he had called him "Scorp" twice in one day.

He didn't know if he wanted to answer the question or not; part of him was screaming to, because he was tired of going through all of these things by himself, while politely listening to Al revel in all the details of his and Bridget's romance. (Which, compared to what Scorpius himself was experiencing on a semi-daily basis, sounded, well, a bit-- _lame_. From what he could tell, there was quite a lot of hand-holding, soulful gazing, and discussing of Arithmancy, but very little in the way of...anything else.) But the other parts of him, the ones that were terrified that somehow this whole thing would come out--those parts wanted him to keep his mouth shut.

"Look, you don't have to tell me who it is."

"I wouldn't."

"I have kind of noticed that much, yeah." Norman rolled his eyes. "What with you acting like a cornered badger any time anyone brings anything up."

"Are you calling me a Hufflepuff?"

"Maybe, since you're so bloody _loyal_ to whoever this mystery lady is!" Norman crowed triumphantly.

Scorpius shoved him off the rock, but he clambered right back up.

"Fine," he said. "It's nice. Quite--nice."

"Nice? Are you bloody kidding me? I can get more than that off of Eddie."

"We did it in the Prefects' bathroom, all right? It was all--wet. And there were lots of bubbles." Scorpius snapped out the bit about the bathroom without thinking.

"The _Prefects_ ' bathroom?" Norman's eyes were the size of the platters the house-elves served whole roast geese on. "You're getting blowjobs from a _Prefect_?"

"Er, no," Scorpius said faintly, trying to think of all the prefects in the school, and coming up only with hazy images of people telling first-years to fall in line, from whom James stole homework.

"Damn it, you've always been so good at guessing all the passwords," Norman moaned, for some reason taking him at his (unfortunately honest; if there was anyone at Hogwarts less prefect-like than James, Scorpius had yet to meet him) word. "And you couldn't even tell me? The Prefects' bathroom is _legendary_."

Scorpius shrugged. "I'll show you where it is. Password's clean linen."

Norman subsided back into silence. Finally he started whining about how hungry he was, and dragged Scorpius back up to the castle. Scorpius attempted to look peaky, when he saw Flitwick and the Muggle Studies professor looking at him. Al was sitting with James again. Scorpius didn't much feel like eating, but he forced some roast chicken down; if he didn't, he'd regret it at Quidditch.

 

"What's up with you and Al?" Ira asked him in the locker room. Scorpius had dawdled down, arriving late on purpose; Ira was just late, but he was the best Chaser on the team, so Paul would let him be. "He's doing his I-am-Potter-hear-me-roar thing. He never does that."

"I dunno," Scorpius lied, shucking off his school robes.

"Couldn't have anything to do with this mysterious person you're sneaking 'round the school with, could it?" Ira sounded deliberately bland. Scorpius remembered the knowing look in his eyes, at the last Hogsmeade weekend before the Christmas hols, and squirmed: of course if Al had noticed something was up with him, Ira would have noticed that something was going on with James.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Scorpius answered, matching Ira for blandness.

"Well." Ira clapped a hand over his shoulder. "Be careful, that's all I'll say. And apologize to Al for whatever you did. Having him hanging around makes James tetchy."

"How d'you tell the difference?"

"Shut it." Ira chucked a glove at him. "Come on, you know Paul'll be in a right state if we take much longer."

Scorpius followed him out onto the pitch. It was freezing and dark; he wasn't looking forward to swinging his broom up into the wind. He didn't even know how Paul had managed to book the pitch--Ravenclaw and Slytherin were playing in a week, and he'd have thought their captains would have taken all the time there was. But no. Gryffindor practiced in the prime slot, six to eight, every night. Maybe Professor Longbottom was quicker at the schedule than the other Heads of House, or something.

 

Paul only yelled at him a little bit at practice, which was, so far, one of the only bright spots in an otherwise horrific day. After they'd all gotten off their brooms, all he wanted to do was shower, go back to the dorm, and sleep; he'd made it through the day on nerves and misery, but the night before was catching up with him.

Of course, Al had other ideas. He informed Scorpius that they were going to talk. Scorpius pointed out that hadn't been going so well for them, lately. Al hit him with a Tickling Jinx, which was, as far as Scorpius was concerned, the most undignified piece of magic that had ever been created. Dignified or not, Al took advantage of his incapacitation and dragged him through Irmelda the Intractable, only ending the jinx when they were already in the tunnel to Hogsmeade.

"Are you kidding with this?" Scorpius asked, once he'd gotten his breath back from the hysterical laughter.

"No." Al pushed him down the tunnel.

"I'm tired. We don't have to go all the way to Hogsmeade."

"I want to."

"Al, I slept about three hours last night."

"You made that choice," he responded, sounding like the love child of Bridget and Professor McGonagall, "now deal with the consequences."

Scorpius groaned but kept trudging down the tunnel, until they reached the trapdoor. They climbed through, slipped out a window, and walked through the quiet, misty streets to the Hog's Head. It had been cold enough at Quidditch, but it had only gotten worse; the air was frigid and damp, as though the fog was turning to ice crystals in the air. Scorpius stuffed his fingers in the pockets of his cloak.

The Hog's Head, despite its layers of ground-in grime, was warm and bright by comparison. The blue-eyed bartender (Scorpius had heard a rumor that he was Aberforth Dumbledore, but no one knew for sure) brought two butterbeers to the table they'd claimed, a small one near the roaring fire. If he knew or cared that they were Hogwarts students, he gave no sign of it. Scorpius sipped at his glass, which was cloudy and still had a pair of lip-prints on its rim, from whomever had used it last. Al appeared to be waiting for him to say something; Scorpius was disinclined to oblige him.

Finally Al said, "This is ridiculous."

Scorpius nodded. He wouldn't dispute that.

"Look, it's obvious that you're seeing someone. It was obvious before you started turning up with hickeys two inches off your dick."

Scorpius choked and spat butterbeer all over the table. Al rolled his eyes and charmed the table clean (or as clean as it was willing to get), while Scorpius was still spluttering.

"It's a bit mental that you won't tell me who it is, but okay, fine. If you've decided you're not going to, I know you won't. But seriously. Don't act as though you're off at all hours of the night practicing your Patronus."

Scorpius squirmed. He hadn't tried it since that night on the Astronomy Tower, because he didn't want to think about how James was his (Very) Powerful Happy Memory. Even in Defense, he'd said the incantation whilst thinking about tea or the Scottish weather. "It's complicated," he finally said, because Al appeared to be waiting for something.

Al rolled his eyes again. "What isn't?"

"You and Bridget," Scorpius offered, hoping to distract Al with his other favorite subject.

"Nice try. But really. I just wish you wouldn't lie to me."

"Fine. But I'm really not--seeing anyone."

"Then what are you doing?"

Scorpius chewed on his bottom lip, then took a gulp from his butterbeer. "Wish I knew."

Al looked almost--pitying. "You always have to make things so bloody hard on yourself."

"Part of my charm."

Al knocked their glasses together. Mercifully, he changed the subject to the upcoming Ravenclaw-Slytherin match. If Slytherin managed to beat Ravenclaw, which was unlikely, Gryffindor would be top. Ravenclaw had absolutely _destroyed_ Hufflepuff, and all reports had them playing like little goal-scoring automatons at practice. This made anyone interested in seeing Gryffindor retain the Cup nervous.

At last, Al noticed that he was drooping into his butterbeer, and led the way back to the castle.

"I am going to sleep for a year," Scorpius announced as they climbed through the Fat Lady.

"No you're not, you're going to do your Herbology homework," Al said.

"No I'm not, I'm going to copy yours at breakfast tomorrow morning. Since I could've already finished it, but you dragged me to Hogsmeade."

Al glowered, but allowed him to head up the stairs without protest. Scorpius put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and crawled into bed. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep immediately.

 

He was walking through the courtyard the next day, on his way to Defense with Norman and Al, when James popped up. "Paul wants to talk to us," he said, "something about a new strategy."

"Right now?" Al sounded skeptical. "Morning break isn't that long."

"S'what he said."

Scorpius had a sinking feeling, resulting from the combination of James's faint smirk and the memory of scattering bits of his note all over the lake. And, since the Bludger Incident, Paul never sought out opportunities to interact with him, unless it was to yell at practice. "I'll see you guys in Defense."

"I'll tell Professor Jones you're coming," Norman offered.

"Thanks." Scorpius sighed, and followed James across the courtyard. "Paul doesn't want to talk to us, does he?"

James glanced over his shoulder, bared his teeth, and didn't answer. They ended up in a little alcove, underneath a staircase that led up to Ravenclaw Tower on odd days of the month. James frowned in concentration, conjuring a curtain to block out the view from the hallway--not that any Ravenclaws would be taking it back to their common room this time of day, even though it was the 21st; the younger years would be hurrying to their lessons, the upperclassmen locked in the library revising for OWLs or NEWTs or whatever else Ravenclaws could think to revise for.

They stared at each other. Scorpius didn't feel like apologizing for not showing up wherever James had wanted him. James, apparently, didn't feel like saying anything. Scorpius tried not to notice how full his mouth was, or the way that he smelled faintly of singe and smoke, because he'd just come from Care Of, where the sixth-years were working with fire crabs.

"So," Scorpius said, to keep himself from licking the V of skin exposed by James's wrinkled button-down. Usually he wouldn't have said anything at all, but this was James, and James had a mysterious talent for getting him to do things he usually wouldn't.

"So," James mimicked. "Had a headache last night, did you?"

"Something like that."

"I got lonely."

"Clearly you survived."

"You know how I get when I get lonely--"

"My heart bleeds."

"--so when I was on my way back to the common room," James continued, as if he hadn't spoken, "I ran into this girl, from your year, I think? Madeira. Seeker for Slytherin."

"How nice for you."

"Don't know how I missed her for so long. All right, that one." He smirked, and stretched his legs deep into Scorpius's personal space. "Anyway, we made up for lost time."

Scorpius took a deep breath, then another. Then he stood up, pulled aside the curtain, and walked out. James tried to stop him, but he didn't listen. In Defense, they were supposed to be practicing _Reducto_ on feather cushions, but Scorpius gave it too much power and blew up Professor Jones' desk instead. Several of the Ravenclaws sitting in the first row got splinters in their faces, and had to go to the Hospital Wing, trailing spatters of blood behind them. Professor Jones took ten points off of Gryffindor and gave him a detention, which he didn't actually mind, as it would get him out of Quidditch. Because he couldn't stand the thought of looking at James's face.

 

He turned up for his detention early, as he had no interest in going to dinner (and he could always go by the kitchens later, if he got hungry). Professor Jones must still have been in the Great Hall, so he sat on the floor across from the door of her office. The stone was very hard underneath him, and sent cold fingers creeping up through his robes.

"Mr. Malfoy," Professor Jones said, as she swept up the hallway towards him. She unlocked the door to her office, sat him down, and started asking him questions about his _feelings_ , along with making statements such as "haven't been yourself," "lapse in concentration was so unusual from you," "looked so tired recently," and "spoke with your Head of House, we're quite concerned."

Scorpius felt, uncharacteristically, the urge to start crying, sitting there in a transfigured armchair, holding a cup of tea that he wasn't ever going to drink. Professor Jones had a round, worried face, which he would have called "motherly" if he'd been taught to associate anything soft and warm with the term. He didn't know what to say, so he told her that he was fine, just under some pressure with Quidditch, as they had a game coming up in February. She sighed at him, with a worried crease on her forehead, took a sip of her tea, and told him that she was there for him, if he ever needed to talk about anything; that if he was feeling depressed, Madame Pomfrey could put him in contact with qualified wizard-counselors.

"Mr. Malfoy," she said, "you are such a talented young man."

He thanked her and asked after his detention.

She sighed again, and told him to go scrub something in the Trophy Room if it would make him feel better. In a way, it did: he sent cleaning charm after polishing charm at the shields and cups and trophies, until he wasn't thinking of James Potter or Madeira Alvarez or the prefects' bathroom or anything at all, really.

 

Time passed. Al made him stop avoiding the Great Hall by telling the house-elves that their hero, his father The Great Harry Potter, had forbidden them from feeding the child of his archenemy, The Significantly More Problematic Draco Malfoy. He did not speak to James outside of Quidditch practice, despite James's efforts to the contrary. Perhaps in response, or perhaps to be an arse, James began sending him notes in increasingly sexualized ways (Spellotaped to his broom handle, stuck in the mouth of his jar of hand cream, down the back of his pants). Regardless of the method of delivery, he _Incendio_ -ed them all.

He wasn't sure if he was happier or not. He didn't sleep, felt mostly awful, and spent a lot of time repeating to Al and Norman that everything was fine. He didn't know if he missed James or not; sometimes, when he was lying in bed not sleeping, he would think of the way James had acted in the prefects' bathroom, the way he'd talked about being a Potter and the way he'd seemed so small and unhappy, the way he'd pressed his face into Scorpius's chest as if he could, for a moment, hide there. He could see himself missing that James, the James who held his hands inside the pockets of his pea coat on top of the Astronomy Tower.

But he didn't miss the rest of James at all.

(As much as James was acting like he wanted him to. Perhaps Madeira had proven to be a sloppier kisser than Leonora.)

 

"Scorp," Norman said.

Scorpius flicked his wand at Norman's tie, which started hitting him round the ears. "Don't call me that." He returned to his Transfiguration essay while Norman subdued his neckwear.

"You're a prat." Norman flopped onto the rug next to him. It was a Thursday night, and they were up in the dorm; everyone else was in the common room, but for reasons obvious Scorpius was avoiding it. "So," he said, like he had something of great importance to announce.

"Yeah?"

"I asked Flora Wimple to Hogsmeade for Valentine's!"

Scorpius crossed out a sentence about the Third Law of Elemental Transfiguration. "Who?"

"You're unreal. She's the blonde Hufflepuff in our year."

"Oh, the--" Scorpius was going to say "fat one," but considering as it was Norman, he revised it to, "--one who's good at Potions."

"Yeah. She's always so nice to me in class, always trying to help me with things, even though my cauldron blew up in her face once, so I figured why not? And she said yes!"

"That's nice." Scorpius tried to feel happy that Norman would be spending Valentine's with the dough-breasted Potions goddess of his sticky-palmed dreams, but gave up quickly.

"We're going to Madame Puddifoot's! It's going to be brilliant!"

Scorpius summoned a smile from somewhere. "That's great, really great." For the next half hour, he listened to Norman natter on about Flora (in somewhat more graphic detail than Al went into with Bridget), and wondered if there was any way he could blame this on James. He didn't want to take a girl to Madame Puddifoot's by any stretch of the imagination. But still, if even Norman could--no. He wasn't going to go down that road. What he was going to do, was stay locked in the dorm room all day, summoning a Patronus using something other than The Way Bloody James Potter Smelled.


	9. Chapter 9

VIII

On Saturday, Scorpius put a Silencing Charm up around his bed, so he wouldn't have to listen to anything about breasts or girls or Hogsmeade or Valentine's. The peace lasted until Al pulled his curtains open.

"Up."

"No."

" _Levicorpus_."

That lasted about a second, but it was enough to get Scorpius out of bed . "Why would you do that?" he asked Al, who was now stuck to the ceiling by the soles of his feet, and turning a very fetching, holiday-appropriate shade of burgundy, with all the blood rushing to his head.

"Come on Scorp, let me down!"

"I was _sleeping_."

"No you weren't," Al pointed out, "as you never sleep anymore."

Scorpius canceled the charm; Al plummeted downwards with a yelp. "Fix your hair, you look a nightmare."

"Er, can you do it for me?"

"No."

"Fine then." Al stomped off towards the bathroom, resembling a porcupine. Scorpius sighed and fixed his hair, did a pressing charm on Eddie's shirt, surreptitiously changed Justin's tie to a shade of blue that almost didn't clash with his jumper, and eradicated a knut-sized pimple that had popped up on Norman's chin. Then he charmed all the muck off his shoes for good measure, as it appeared that he'd strolled through the heap of pumpkin fertilizer in them.

"Anyone else need anything?" he asked the room at large.

"Wait, aren't you going out?" Eddie asked. He was the last to filter out the door.

"No."

"You mean you didn't get a date?" 

"No, as I didn't try to."

"So does that mean you're going to be here? All day?"

"I was planning on it."

"Well." Eddie paused. "This is a bit of awkward, but I, ah, well, was planning to bring my girl round."

Scorpius blinked. "You were what?"

"I was--"

"No, I understand." He tried to blank his mind of any images of Eddie and _his girl_ , whoever that unfortunate creature might be.

"So if you could, you know. Not be here. Around noon. That would be fantastic." Eddie flashed him a grin that was probably supposed to be winning, and ducked down the staircase. Scorpius wondered if things would have turned out differently with James, if James had been the kind of person worth asking his roommates to clear off for. Then he made himself stop wondering anything of the sort, and pulled out the Italian book on charming that he'd gotten around Christmas. He opened it to the chapter on memory charms, _Incantesimi per la memoria_ , and began to read.

 

At noon, Eddie and a plain girl who might or might not have been in Slytherin arrived. Eddie made a great production about showing her something in his trunk, while shooting Scorpius deathly looks behind her back. Scorpius went down to the common room, but a knot of second-year girls had borrowed Rhys's Muggle speakers, which were shooting out rose-scented smoke and sappy vocals. He couldn't fly, either, since the Hufflepuffs had booked the Quidditch pitch, as, unlike Gryffindor, they appeared to be taking their upcoming match seriously. It had been announced Friday morning that the library would be closed for the weekend, as Madame Pince's sister had taken a poor turn. And Peeves was in Scorpius's favorite unoccupied classroom, drawing nudes on the chalkboard.

Scorpius finally collapsed on the steps in front of the castle. It was a freezing, gray day, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the canary-colored blobs of the Hufflepuffs swooping above the Quidditch pitch, mocking him with their very presence.

This was the moment when James Potter came walking up the road from Hogsmeade.

He stopped a couple of feet back from the foot of the broad, shallow stairs, where Scorpius's legs were sprawled. They looked at each other. It was pure fantasy, but Scorpius imagined that he could see the glints of gold in the irises of James's eyes, that he could feel the softness of the hair curling above the collar of his shirt, and the scratchy wool of his coat.

James snorted, and gave his head a funny little shake. He started up the steps. Scorpius turned to watch him pass. When James had his hand up to pull the doors open, Scorpius said, "Hey," and James stopped and came and sat next to him. Scorpius felt very aware of the fact that James wasn't touching him in any way.

They sat there, in the meager February sunlight.

After a while, pairs of people started coming back towards the castle. Scorpius and James watched them pass. Occasionally James would say something cutting about them, and occasionally Scorpius would tell him to shut up, although he usually agreed with the sentiment.

"I'm bloody cold," James said at last. It was starting to get dark, which was a bit shocking, as that meant they'd been sitting on the steps for a good couple of hours.

"I'm not keeping you out here," Scorpius returned, although he was long since freezing himself.

"Oh, shut it with that." James grabbed the back of his cloak and hauled him to his feet. "Come on, we're getting a bloody drink."

Scorpius wrenched himself free. "Not that way we aren't."

"What do you want? A bloody engraved invitation?"

James's voice was tight, and his cheeks were starting to flush. Scorpius didn't feel like fighting with him, though. It was the strangest thing: he could see what he might say to James, to make his mouth tense and cause him to slam back into the castle, all of those possibilities radiating out from this moment. "No," he said instead, "I mean they won't let us out the gate. Too close to curfew."

They crawled through Irmelda's hump (Scorpius wasn't surprised that James knew about her, although James seemed surprised that Scorpius knew the password; Scorpius enjoyed informing him that he'd known it since first year), and ended up in the Hog's Head after a close scrape in the basement of Honeyduke's. And then another close scrape when Scorpius almost eviscerated a pair of Hufflepuff sixth-years, for being too busy gazing into each other's eyes to keep from walking straight into him.

At the Hog's Head--which was free of pink, hearts, and the cherubs caterwauling on harps outside Madame Puddifoot's; it had, in fact, increased its quotient of surliness and grime, out of spite--James tugged him to a narrow booth in the back. They sat facing each other over the table, and two pints of porter that the bartender had slopped down on the table. James started tracing patterns in the spilled beer. Scorpius watched the tendons move on the back of his hand.

"So we should probably speak to each other," James informed the table.

"I like you better with your mouth shut."

James snorted. "S'not what you said the other night." He shot Scorpius an impish look from underneath his fringe.

Scorpius kicked him. Then he twitched, as James ran a retaliatory foot up the inside of his calf. And then they had a conversation, about classes and Quidditch and a mutual hatred of Valentine's Day. It felt like an out-of-body experience.

"So why were you down in Hogsmeade at all?" Scorpius finally asked. He hoped that James hadn't left some poor girl abandoned and sobbing in Madame Puddifoot's, getting the teacakes all soggy with her misery.

"Well," James said, "Ira wouldn't tell me who he was taking out. And I had to find out."

"Who was it?"

"That Alvarez girl."

"Ah."

James had the good grace--a trait which Scorpius had not known he possessed--to look sheepish. "Turns out she only goes for blonds."

"So all the people who thought I was secretly dating her weren't that far off."

"People thought _you_ were dating her?"

"That's what Al said."

"Why, in the name of Merlin's great knobby staff, would they think _you_ were going with _her_?"

"What," Scorpius asked acidly, "am I that revolting?"

"No, it's just..." James waved a hand at him. "You don't look like you'd be interested in girls, is all."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know. Your hair's always perfect and you look like you stepped out the window at Madame Malkin's. And I've never seen you even look at Boot's bum in her Quidditch leathers. Everyone looks at Boot's bum when she's got her leathers on."

Scorpius narrowed his eyes.

"Come on, don't get all angry."

"I'm not angry."

James kicked him. "You're always angry."

"You make me angry." He took a swig of his porter and refused to look James in the eye.

"I seem to have that talent, yeah." James sounded rueful. "With a lot of people."

"It's because you're an arse."

"Thanks."

"Really."

"You're not exactly sweetness and light, yourself."

"Never claimed to be." Scorpius swirled the beer left in the bottom of his glass. He wondered how long he and James could keep this up, this not ripping each other's hair out or clothes off.

"Want to get out of here?" James asked, after a few more minutes. Scorpius nodded, James tossed a handful of coins down on the table, and they left. In the tunnel under Honeyduke's, Scorpius asked, as a joke, if James had just taken him out on a date; and then James thought about it, and said that yeah, he reckoned he had, not sounding like he was joking at all. Scorpius felt his stomach flip over. He put his hand on the small of James's back, and kept it there until they climbed back out of Irmelda's hump.

They stood there, looking at each other in the dim, flickering light of the hallway. "So," James said.

"I should get back to the Tower," Scorpius said, all of a sudden terrified.

James stepped towards him and kissed his forehead. "Come on, don't."

"No, I really should." But he couldn't help breathing in James's smell. And he didn't think he would mind horrifically much if James went all primal and dragged him back down into the tunnel.

"All right, fine." James sighed into his hair, and then they walked to Gryffindor Tower. It was mostly empty, except for the first- and second-years (not including any of the Weasley horde; they were probably off wreaking havoc somewhere). Scorpius imagined that everyone else was snogging behind a tapestry, or hiding in their dorm, hoping to fool the rest of the school into thinking they were off snogging behind a tapesty. He wondered how Norman and Flora's tea at Madame Puddifoot's had gone.

"I'm going to do some homework," Scorpius announced.

"Don't be so damn lame."

"We've got a massive essay for Binns. I've got to do it eventually."

"No one does homework for History of Magic."

"Perhaps that's why I'm almost top of my year and you're somewhere near the bottom of yours."

"You're insufferable, you know that?"

"I didn't know you knew words that big," Scorpius said waspishly, and _Accio_ -ed his History of Magic text--he didn't want to risk going upstairs, in case Eddie was still engaged in any part of losing his virginity. He took a table near the fireplace, clearing it of first-years with a raised eyebrow, not paying attention to James at all, who was going up the stairs to the sixth-years' dorm.

Until James flopped into the chair across from him, banging down a Defense text and a messy stack of notes. "I'm not at the bottom of my year, I'll have you know."

"Where are you then, in the fiftieth percentile?"

"Shut it, Malfoy."

Scorpius was happy to do so. He got through half a page of an outline about the Germanic Giant Wars of the 1260s, before James bothered him again.

"Oi."

"What?"

"D'you know if there's a vampire-finding charm?"

"Yes."

James chucked a crumpled-up piece of parchment at him. "What is it?"

"I only know it in Italian. Don't know if Jones will accept that or not."

"I'll take what I can get, you great continental ponce."

"The incantation is ' _Al chiaro del sole, si riveli_.'"

"Can you spell that out for me?"

After Scorpius spelled it, James scribbled at his ink-smudged parchment for a minute. "How d'you know that, anyway? You haven't got any Italian magical training ."

Scorpius finished outlining his paragraph on the Gurg of Swabia. "I had tutoring when I was younger."

"Which covered how ten-year-olds should ferret out vampires, right."

"It's family lore, actually. One of my forefathers, the Prince Philip Doria Pamphilj Landi, was declared the Duke of Avigliano when he cleared all the vampires out of Basilicata."

"Did you just refer to Prince Poncing Whatsisface as your _forefather_?"

Scorpius scrunched down in his chair. "I couldn't remember how many times over he was my great grandfather." He could almost feel his mother's eyes burning into the back of the neck, after admitting that out loud. It was his responsibility, he could hear her saying, to know the history of his family, to live up to the name she'd bequeathed on him.

"You're a right disgrace."

Scorpius threw the bit of parchment back at him, pegging him squarely between the eyes. "At least I know where I come from."

"I know where I come from," James said. "London, and Ottery St. Catchpole in the summertime."

Scorpius rolled his eyes and went back to his outline. James subsided as well, except for the occasional swear word as he dug through his great piles of notes.

Until Al got back, anyway.

"Scorpius? _James_?"

"Hi little brother," James smirked, while Scorpius attempted to look like someone who hadn't just got caught sharing a table in the common room with James Potter.

Al looked from James, to Scorpius, to James's pile of notes, and back again. "James, are you doing _homework_? On a _Saturday_?"

"S'nothing else to do."

"There's a party in Ravenclaw."

"It's Valentine's Day. I'm allergic to celebrating Valentine's Day."

"You're allergic to doing your own homework, is what you're allergic to." Al sat down at the table. Scorpius wished, very much, for a hole to open in the floor underneath his chair, and to fall into it, and die, as Al had his inquisitive face on. "Along with being civil to Scorpius."

"That bit's mutual." James gave the table a toothy grin.

"But here you are. Doing homework together. Being civil."

"Where's Bridget?" Scorpius asked, not liking where Al was going with this.

Al deflated. "Ravenclaw."

"Why aren't you off snogging her in a dungeon?" James asked, wagging his eyebrows. "Fit bird like that."

"Keep off my girl," Al said. "But she ate something funny at Madame Puddifoot's. She went to have a lie-down."

"Tragic," James sighed. "Are your blue balls terribly awful?"

Al turned bright red and shot a hex at James, that caused sea kelp to come sprouting out of his nostrils. James gurgled and went over backwards in his chair. Scorpius put him in a full Body-Bind, out of habit. The first-years scattered.

"He's harmless until I let him out," Scorpius called after them. "Pathetic bunch of Gryffindors you lot are."

Al snorted. Down on the carpet, James was making muffled noises of rage. "Surprised you hadn't already done that."

"Me too."

James managed to thump up against a leg of the table.

"If I tell Scorp to let you go, will you behave?" Al asked him.

James thumped at the table again.

"He's feisty," Ira observed from the Fat Lady. Madeira Alvarez was lingering behind him, her long, black hair curling over one shoulder. "Watch it, you two."

"Scorp can handle him."

"Don't call me Scorp."

Ira came over and nudged James's shoulder with his foot. Madeira stayed by the portrait hole. "Be nice to your little brother and his little friend, Jamesey."

"Fat chance," Al said.

"Oh, he can be quite pleasant when he wants to be," Ira said. Scorpius couldn't tell if Ira was saying that towards him, or not; but either way, he gave the piles of homework an amused glance. "Well, I'm only here to get a bottle of brandywine, then Madeira and I are off."

While Ira was upstairs, Scorpius let James off the floor, and Al Banished the sea kelp. James only tried to curse them back a little bit, before he started trying to get Al to teach him the spell. Scorpius had no idea why he was behaving so well. He kept expecting James to revert back into King Prat Mode, but James kept--acting like a human being. It was the strangest experience of his year so far, and that year encompassed some bizarre moments.

"Glad someone's having a nice night," Al said morosely, after Ira and Madeira had disappeared back out the portrait hole.

"I'm having a nice night," Scorpius said, without thinking.

Al stared at him. James smirked at him. Scorpius buried himself back in his essay, and attempted to pretend that the rest of the world did not exist, especially the bits of it that were named Potter.

 

Scorpius wasn't stupid enough to think Al would forget the "I'm having a nice night, sitting in the Common Room with all the first-years, doing homework with the person I hate most in the world." But he hoped that he might. Monday in Care Of, Professor Weasley brought in a pair of unicorn mares and foals, so all the girls were up at the front, leaving the boys to do whatever they pleased, as long as they kept reasonably quiet.

"So," said Al (who appeared to have decided that Care Of was the perfect time to confront Scorpius about--everything), "you and James looked like you were getting along."

"When?" Scorpius asked, hoping that Al would choose to remember Sunday (Quidditch: James making all kinds of digs at him, Scorpius sniping back; Al didn't know that they'd snogged behind the Herbology greenhouses for an hour after practice) rather than Saturday.

"Oh, I dunno. Valentine's. And then at Quidditch you seemed to be just going through the motions."

"Er." Up at the front, Professor Weasley was explaining something about purity of intent and possibly virginity. Scorpius attempted to look interested.

Al elbowed him. "C'mon."

"He's awful."

Al was still looking at him, though, with his eyebrows raised, as if he expected Scorpius to continue.

"And a gigantic prat."

"Didn't seem to think he was so prat-like on Valentine's night."

"We were," Scorpius paused to collect himself, "united in our hatred of the holiday." Hatred that involved going on a, a bloody _date_ and then sitting around doing homework like Al and Bridget. Even if Bridget would never set foot in the Hog, much less drink from their cloudy glasses. Or engage in the kind of activity that had happened behind Greenhouse Three the night before.

Al rolled his eyes. "It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you started getting along."

"Not happening," Scorpius said. "Never happening."

"Fine." Al made a face at him. "Did--" He stopped when Norman edged closer to them, squeezing through a pair of Slytherins, who looked at him as if he was something they'd scrape off their shoes.

"I've got a question," Norman announced, a little too loudly--Professor Weasley shot them a Look.

"What?" Al asked, through the angelic smile he was beaming towards Uncle Professor Charlie. That was enough to get him to turn his attention back to the girls, the unicorns, and the Ravenclaw boys standing in the first row. Sometimes Potters were handy to have around.

"Not for you." He paused. "Sorry, Potter."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow, and waited. So far, he'd heard about Norman and Flora's Valentine's Day on Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday dinner, Sunday over Charms homework, Sunday whilst brushing his teeth, and Monday at breakfast. It had been, from Norman's report, the best day of his life. They'd had tea at Madame Puddifoot's, walked up to the Shrieking Shack, and then they'd gone to Flourish and Blotts, where he'd showed her his favorite comics. Contrary to Scorpius's expectations, this had not caused her to slip something unpleasant into his pumpkin juice. Instead of expressing this great shock, he had said supportive, friendlike things such as "I'm glad to hear that" and "Wow" and "It's great that she likes Marvin Miggs, really great," while declining to give his opinion on whether Flora Wimple would kiss, snog, or in any way put out. This had not stopped Norman from asking, as Norman had the subtlety of a rampaging hippogriff.

"So Scorp, how long does it take before they'll give you head?"

The latter half of this question fell into one of those silences that occur in all groups of people. Several heads (that word!) turned to look at Scorpius. Professor Weasley's mouth began twitching. The mother unicorns, sensing the distinct lack of purity and virginity coming from Scorpius's bit of the crowd, laid their ears back, while their offspring galloped off towards the Forest. 

Scorpius acted as if he had not heard Norman. And not noticed the fact that the entire class was staring at him. And that James Potter's filthiness had not caused him to _frighten away baby unicorns_.

 

James grabbed him after Charms, and pulled him through a trick door that sometimes opened onto a hallway and sometimes opened onto a stone wall. Today it was a narrow, dusty hallway with dirty windows looking out over the front gate. In the few parts of his brain that were functioning, Scorpius wondered how James always knew where he was, where the empty parts of the castle were.

"The answer is," James was saying into the skin behind Scorpius's ear, "a bloody long time."

"You can't have heard about that," Scorpius said.

"Everyone's heard about that." James had his fingers hooked through Scorpius's belt loops, pulling their hips into alignment.

"I want to die," he told James's mouth. "Please kill me."

James nipped at his neck. "But then who'd I have to Beat around with?"

He groaned and swatted at James, which caused him to redouble his efforts on Scorpius's neck, which caused Scorpius's knees to melt and his hands to fumble at James's belt buckle. James made an appreciative noise and thrust against him. Scorpius turned his head to smell his hair, which was not a good sign, and then he was gasping as James yanked down his trousers and went to his knees, pressing kisses and words like "fuck" and "want" into the crease of his thigh.

It was at this moment that the trick door opened. Leonora Llewellyn stepped through it. Scorpius would remember her as moving very slowly, as though she was under _Impedimenta_ , but of course it all happened much faster: her face froze, her mouth shaped itself into an O, a stack of books began to fall from her arm. Scorpius drew his wand, pointed it at her, and said " _Obliviate_." In that instant, with James's hot breath on his skin, Scorpius had no doubt that the Memory Charm would work; but later he would keep himself up at night, running over all the things he could have done wrong, all the ways he could have turned Leonora into a, a mindless thing, because he had never lacked for power, and Memory Charms were like Unforgiveables: you had to really _mean_ them, and Merlin knew he meant it; but right then, he knew that she would forget seeing them here, Scorpius with his trousers round his ankles and his school robes spread wide, James kneeling in front of him with his thumbs tucked to the inside of Scorpius's hipbones.

Leonora's eyes went vacant. She picked up her books and walked back into the main hallway, shutting the door behind her.

Scorpius cast every locking charm he knew on the door, and then felt his knees buckle. He slid down the wall.

"Holy fuck," James said, from the other side of the hallway, which was where he'd landed when he'd thrown himself away from Scorpius. "Fucking _shit_."

Scorpius nodded. He pulled his trousers back on.

"How did you fucking _do_ that?"

Scorpius shook his head.

"That's advanced magic. NEWT level."

"I'm very--" Scorpius meant to say "talented," but his voice cracked as everything that could have just happened, and didn't, came crashing over him. He put his face in his hands, and did not cry in front of James Potter.

James crawled across the floor towards him. Scorpius was afraid that James was going to do something James-like and either 1) make fun of him or 2) take his trousers off. But instead, James kind of put an arm around his shoulders, and may have pulled him into his chest, where he may or may not have stayed for a while.

He asked, muffled into James's shirt, why he was being so nice. James didn't say anything for a while, hands stroking up and down his back. Then he said that he'd had some time to think, over the last few weeks, and that he'd realized that he liked having Scorpius around. And, he added, the head, for which he had waited so long. Scorpius hit at him, but they ended up kissing instead.

 

Scorpius woke up early the morning of the Hufflepuff match. He opened the window by his bed and sent a paper bird out of it, but shut it before he could give himself the chance to watch it flap up towards the sixth-year floor, like some great mooning girl.

James found him in the bathroom. "Morning," he said, voice scratchy.

Scorpius eyed him. He'd seen James plenty of mornings, down in the Great Hall, but he'd never seen James gritty-eyed and barefoot in threadbare flannel pajama pants before. James, because he was a twat, appeared to sleep shirtless, but had thrown an unzipped Muggle hoodie around his shoulders. "You shouldn't be down here."

"You shouldn't be awake." James yawned and leaned on a sink. "More importantly, you shouldn't have woken _me_ up."

"No one made you get out of bed."

James rolled his eyes, and pulled Scorpius into his body. Scorpius put his hands inside James's hoodie, feeling the warm, smooth skin of his hips. James told him he smelled good. Scorpius told him he had morning breath. He had found out that his head fit perfectly into the curve between James's neck and shoulder, which was dangerous knowledge, but then everything about their non-relationship had felt dangerous lately.

"I should really go," James said into his hair. "Can't get caught down here."

Scorpius tightened his arms, then let go. "I know."

"See you in the Great Hall."

"Yeah."

James kissed him on the corner of his mouth, then slipped out of the bathroom. At the match, Scorpius knocked one of the Hufflepuff Chasers off her broom as she was about to score, and Al caught the Snitch in twenty-seven minutes. Everything seemed bright and easy: the cold wind, the surety that James was flying someplace behind him.

 

Every day, Scorpius woke up expecting some kind of disastrous--thing to happen. For James to toss him over to have another crack at Madeira. For the Head Boy to walk in on them snogging in the Prefect's Bath. For Peeves to catch them slinking back to Gryffindor Tower. For Al to renew his line of inquiry into why he and James didn't seem quite so firmly bent on killing each other.

But somehow, none of these things happened. Scorpius would get out of bed, eat breakfast, go to class, blow James in a bathroom somewhere, play Quidditch, do his homework, meet James in the Prefect's Bath or an empty classroom, and then go back to bed. James still acted like an enormous prat some of the time, and like an absolute horror a bit of the time, but for most of the minutes and hours they stole together, he was funny and humane and liked to sit with his head on Scorpius's lap, as if he were some kind of Muggle dog, while Scorpius toyed with his hair.

While they sat like that, unable to see each other's faces, they would talk. Or mostly James would talk, about his cousins or Quidditch or growing up in No. 12 Grimmauld Place, and Scorpius would listen. Sometimes Scorpius would volunteer a detail from his own life (cursing Adalberto: James liked that one, and threatened to go down to Como to do worse; watching the Muggles stream up and down Via del Corso every day, and the pigeons that would peck at his wrists; that the first time he ever flew was on the back of a thestral, strapped to his mother's chest, and that he could still feel the whip of the mare's mane over his arms, and remember when he'd finally got brave enough to open his eyes, how the countryside had opened beneath him like an Impressionist painting).

James would listen carefully while he spoke, and Scorpius would always wind himself back into silence, feeling self-conscious with the way his words sounded, as they hung in the air.

"I'd like to see the Gallery," James told him once. They were sprawled out on top of the Astronomy Tower on an early May night. It had been an unseasonably warm day, and all of the heat hadn't yet faded from the tower's stone blocks, even though the air had chilled. They were both lying on their backs, watching the stars slowly, carefully, come out.

Scorpius tried to imagine James in the Gallery. All of the paintings talking behind their hands, wondering who he was: the nymphs giggling into their diaphanous robes, the angels shaking their gilt wings, Paris smiling his inscrutable smile as the ram nibbled at his hair. At first it was very difficult to see him there, amidst the silence and the marble, but after a while it became easier.

"Come visit, then," Scorpius said, feeling reckless.

James turned to look at him. Scorpius wouldn't meet his eyes.

"It'd be impossible to explain," James said. He sounded almost--sad.

"I agree."

James reached for his shoulder and pulled him over. Scorpius shut his eyes as James kissed him. He didn't know how long he could keep going like this, although it was strange and wonderful and felt very much like flying, and he would rather do anything than stop.

When he rolled off of James, he sat up, cross-legged, and summoned his Patronus. The more time he spent with James, the easier it seemed to be, to summon up the necessary level of happiness. Scorpius's wolf wagged his tail at James, jaws parted in a lupine smile. James smiled back and performed the charm himself. His Patronus was a large, shaggy dog, that he said looked like the Animagus form of his namesake Sirius Black.

James and Scorpius watched the two animals chase each other around the perimeter of the tower, bounding and rolling. Whenever they touched, silver bubbles jetted out into the darkness.

"Wonder if that's normal," James said.

"Don't know."

"I like that they like each other."

"They're Patronuses, James, they don't have feelings."

"Oh, shut it." James tousled his hair. "Look at them. How can you say that?"

Scorpius shook his hair back into place. The wolf dissolved into silver mist, and after a moment the dog followed.

James sighed. "Back to Gryff, then?"

"Probably should." But Scorpius stayed seated until James offered him a hand, then towed him to his feet. Paul was making the first team fly extra practices now, in anticipation of the Ravenclaw match, which would once again decide the Quidditch Cup. Whenever anyone complained about the extra practice (especially Cara Boot, whose OWLs were fast approaching) Paul roared that he wouldn't see Gryffindor lose the Cup under his captaincy. A tic had also started up, in the vicinity of his left eye, and for once James was not the most-feared boy in Gryffindor.

Back in the Tower, the Common Room was occupied largely by fifth- and seventh-years, underlining passages in books with titles like Professor O. M. Nipotent's Oversized Guide To Being Outstanding On Your OWLs. Al was trying to talk Cara and Maureen Hornby through a set of Astronomy review cards. Maureen, in particular, looked close to tears.

"Buggering exams," James muttered, and stomped upstairs. Scorpius knew he was terrified of his exams next year: he wanted to follow his father into the Aurors, and needed five NEWTs to do it. Because The Great Harry Potter would never engage in nepotism. (Possibly since he would bankrupt the Bureau if he tried to get a job for every one of his relatives.)

Scorpius smirked and sat down with Al, Cara, and Maureen. Maureen had a study guide for Charms out as well. He flicked through it, refusing to admit to himself that he was relieved he knew all of the spells in it already. Because Potters did things like worry about their OWLs, not Malfoys.

When Al had finished droning on about apogees and periapsides and aphelions (and Maureen had butchered the pronunciation of "pericytherion" no less than eleven times), Scorpius followed him up into their dormitory.

"Can I borrow your toothpaste?" Al asked in the bathroom. Scorpius handed it over, and rinsed off his face wash. It was a new kind that his mother had sent him--it fizzed, reminding him of prosecco. He rather liked it. She had written that it wouldn't be publicly available for another six months.

Al spat out his toothpaste. "Where were you and James?"

"We," Scorpius answered, "ran into each other outside the Fat Lady."

"What were you doing before then?"

"Practicing my Patronus."

Al rolled his eyes. "Oh, we're back to that again."

"I want," Scorpius temporized, feeling guilty in spite of himself, "to get the hang of using it to send messages."

"So who were you sending messages to?"

"No one. I was just practicing."

"Ah." Al rinsed off his toothbrush. "Didn't Flitwick say you had to know exactly who you wanted it to speak to, for it to work?"

"Well," Scorpius began, and then gave up. "Guess he did."

"Sloppy, Malfoy. Very sloppy."

"I can't be perfect all the time."

"Guess you can't." Al was looking at him, with his big, worried green eyes. "You are--being careful this time, aren't you?"

"I'm trying," Scorpius answered, not adding that James was making this very difficult.


	10. Chapter 10

IX

After they won the Ravenclaw match--narrowly enough to make everyone nervous; in all honesty it came down to some heroic flying from Al and Cara Boot--to retain the Quidditch Cup, but before Ira and James had slept off their hangovers, it was time for finals. Scorpius hadn't studied at all, as Paul had been keeping them so busy with practice, and James had been keeping him so busy with sex and conversations and also, lying together on top of the Astronomy Tower, heads on each others' shoulders, breathing in each others' smells. (He didn't know what he was more worried about: this or his Herbology final.)

In the end, he managed tolerably all of his finals, even inching past Rose to the top of the year for Defense. For his Charms practical, Professor Flitwick just said, "Impress me," in his squeaky little voice; Scorpius cast a Memory Charm on him without thinking about it, losing Gryffindor 40 house points for unauthorized use of magic on a faculty member, but breaking Hermione Granger's record for the most points ever scored on a Hogwarts exam. He didn't care about the house points anyway; Gryffindor was, true to form, in dead last, so it wasn't like anyone was going to miss them. Besides, Hufflepuffs needed something to get themselves through the year.

Before he knew it, there was only one night left before they would all leave on the Hogwarts Express. Scorpius didn't know what to do with this frighteningly finite amount of time: Al and Norman would be packing at the last minute, and he always helped Al, at least, and he had imagined that this year he would be helping Norman as well; but then there was James.

James made the decision for him. He collared him after lunch, behind the tapestry of Ethelred the Eveready.

"Slytherin's throwing a party for all the sixth-years," he said.

"Oh," Scorpius answered.

"I kind of--have to go." James was looking at him with a kind of terrifying earnestness. He needed a haircut, and kept having to push his fringe out of his eyes. "People will notice if I'm not there. I just can't--not."

"I understand," Scorpius said, and he did. He did. He understood the force of social obligation, the force of position, better than maybe anyone else at Hogwarts. He thought of the New Years party on the lake, and the cold pressure of the Italian Minister's fingers.

"So this is," James said, and then he stopped. He made a frustrated noise. Scorpius touched his lips with one finger, and then kissed them, softly. He said, "sh," and James did, and kissed him back.

 

It was after one in the morning before Scorpius had finished packing Norman's trunk. Everyone else was done; Orion and Eddie were playing Exploding Snap in the middle of the room, while Justin heckled them. Al and Scorpius were lying on Al's bed, pretending to watch them. Norman was flipping through a Marvin Miggs, occasionally announcing to the room at large that he and Flora Wimple were going to exchange comics over the summer. Scorpius did not feel that statements like that deserved responses from anyone over the age of eleven.

"Bridget might come visit Ottery St. Catchpole this summer," Al told Scorpius.

"That's nice."

"You're killing me with your enthusiasm."

"I do that."

Al kicked him.

"Ow."

"You going to have any summer visitors?" Al asked. When Scorpius looked at him, he was quirking his eyebrow, like he was trying to make a joke out of it, but also not.

"No."

"Merlin, it must be boring being you."

Scorpius snorted, refraining from pointing out that Al was actually much more boring than him, with his nice girlfriend and her nice hair and their nice talks about the angles of Io and Europa.

"You can always come by the Otter," Al offered. "Mum and Dad wouldn't even notice having another person 'round."

"Rose would try to murder me to prove the Defense exam was a fluke." What Scorpius did not say was, I don't know how James would react to me showing up. "And James makes me suicidal," he added after a second, because that was the kind of thing he was supposed to say.

"Oh please, your cousin's just going to try and kill you in Italy anyway."

"As if he could."

At that moment, James strode into the fourth-year dormitory. His hair was wet and curly, his cheeks were flushed, and his Muggle shirt was buttoned wrong, splaying open across his collarbone and clinging to his wet skin. Down on the floor, an Exploding Snap card went off with a bang, unheeded.

"Need to talk to you," he announced to the room.

"What in Merlin's name about?" Al asked. He thought James was talking to him, Scorpius realized, as James had directed himself at Al's bed, where they were both still lying. "We have all bloody summer."

"Not you." He jutted his chin towards Scorpius.

Scorpius rolled off of Al's bed, trying to think of anything that could possibly justify this late-night tête-à-tête, and coming up with exactly nothing. He settled for "I'll be right back," and shoved James through the door before Al or Norman (or worse, someone else) could collect their faculties enough to comment.

There was no one in the Common Room to see them leave, which was a blessing, and somehow they made it across the castle, down to the second-floor hallway where Professor Jones had her office, without running into Peeves or a professor. There was a large, ornate map of Argyllshire on the wall where they stopped.

"Why'd we have to come all the way down here?" Scorpius hissed, as James kissed his cheek and then walked past a nondescript piece of wall, across from the map, three times. Scorpius remembered that this was where he'd put James in a Body-Bind, back in the winter, and then left him. Thinking of that made him feel vaguely ill.

James opened the door that appeared in the wall, and waved him through. Inside was a small bedroom with a double bed, neatly made up with a blue quilt, and lit with Muggle-style lamps. There was a desk in one corner, and a whitewashed fireplace with an empty grate. Scorpius walked over to one of the room's large windows, nudged open a curtain, and looked out over a classic English country garden, illuminated by strings of pixie-lights. The garden ran down to a river, highlighted silver in the moonlight. Scorpius realized that this couldn't be anyplace other than the Room of Requirement, as there wasn't a garden or a river like that anywhere near Hogwarts.

James came to stand behind him, wrapping his arms around Scorpius's waist. His breath was warm and smelled like beer and smoke, but his clothes were still wet, from whatever he'd been doing before he came to the tower.

"How'd you find it?" Scorpius asked him, closing the curtain and turning to face him.

"I got a lot of detentions second year, and one time I was looking for someplace to hide from Jones down here, and all of a sudden--there it was. Didn't figure out it was more than a handy broom cupboard until a few days later."

Scorpius rested his head on James's shoulder. When Hogwarts had reopened after the War, the Room of Requirement had been so swamped with students that the faculty had discussed locking it up, or turning it into a permanent monument to Dumbledore's Army; but the Room itself had disagreed, and vanished overnight. The story went that it was too powerful a piece of magic, too integral to the fabric of Hogwarts Castle, to ever disappear completely. Finding it had become the Holy Grail of Hogwarts' more persistent trouble-makers, notably Louis, Fred, and Lucy Weasley. But to Scorpius's knowledge, no one had ever done it.

"What happened to the party?" he asked, to distract himself from the enormity of the Room's significance, to the course of Wizarding history (in general) and the Malfoy family (in particular).

"I left."

"You smell like the lake."

"I may have jumped in before I came to get you. Some Slytherin said I wouldn't."

"Of course you did." He couldn't keep himself from smiling into the skin of James's neck. Then James tipped his chin up to kiss him. His mouth had the ferric taste of lake water.

"Had to say goodbye to the squid anyway." James's fingers slid underneath his shirt, drawing patterns on his lower back. "Dressing down tonight?"

"Hm?"

"Never seen you in just a t-shirt before." James began tugging it over his head, slowly, hands stroking across all of the skin that he exposed. Scorpius shivered and unbuttoned James's shirt, all three that he'd bothered to do up after hauling himself out of the lake.

"I was packing up all Norman's filth."

James kissed his neck. "Getting awfully bloody comfortable 'round here, aren't you?"

Scorpius shoved him back onto the bed. "It's my school, of course I'm--" he paused, then decided to continue, " _bloody comfortable_."

James hooked an ankle around his waist and towed him in. Scorpius fell on top of him, feeling the familiar firmness of James's body, the strength of his chest. He realized it was the first time they'd ever been in bed together. An actual bed. Instead of a hallway or the Astronomy Tower or the Quidditch showers. In a way it felt strange, to not feel his back bruise as James flipped them over. Instead, there was the give of a mattress, the softness of an old quilt.

James pulled his shirt the rest of the way off, then leaned down to kiss him again. Scorpius wound his legs around James's hips, pulling their bodies together. James made his pleased, humming noise. He was licking his way down Scorpius's chest, and the hum vibrated something deep and vital in Scorpius's stomach. He twined a hand in James's hair as James tugged his trousers open with his teeth, a trick he'd picked up somewhere along the line and could never keep from showing off. Scorpius could feel James's breath tickling inside the crease of his thigh. They didn't always do this fast, but they did it slow rarely enough that this was--he didn't want to say it was _special_ or anything like that but--

"You," James breathed onto the tip of his cock, "are thinking too fucking much right now."

The last thing that Scorpius thought, for a while, was that this was, as ever, true.

After Scorpius had finished, he climbed back on top and shoved James's khakis out of the way. He sat on James's lap, looking at the view underneath him: James, with his mouth swollen and red, eyes half-lidded and hair a mess from Scorpius's hands. James put his thumbs on Scorpius's hipbones and massaged them in slow circles, making his skin move over his bones.

"You are fucking gorgeous you know that," James said.

Scorpius shoved his hair back off of his forehead, and splayed his other hand out over James's chest. His heart beat underneath his palm. This was all very--strange, although he supposed that a certain point the strangeness had become the standard. He leaned down and kissed James on the lips, at the place where his jaw intersected with the soft skin behind his ear, in the hollow his collarbone made as it fanned out across his shoulder. He pushed back onto James's cock and James's fingers tightened.

"Do you want to?" he asked. It took every ounce of willpower in his body to make his voice sound cool, unconcerned.

James made a strangled noise, which was not very sexy. "Do I _want to_?"

Scorpius knew how to do this, in theory if not in practice. He put out his hand and concentrated on his wand, mouthing _Accio_ , but it didn't even twitch; he was too distracted.

"It's okay, I've got it," James breathed, managing to get the drawer of the bedside table open without dislodging Scorpius from his lap. The drawer contained several well-thumbed issues of Witches Gone Wild and a tube containing a clear, greenish substance.

Scorpius took the tube and squeezed some of the lubricant out onto his hand. It smelled faintly of mint, and was cool at first, but warmed to his skin. James was watching him with his mouth hanging open. He looked like he'd been Stupefied, which made Scorpius lean down and kiss him, for no reason at all except that he wanted to.

Scorpius reached behind himself and slid a finger into his opening. He'd done this a few times, alone in the shower, but had never gotten very far; it felt odd, and--he didn't know.

James was almost shaking. He slid a hand off of Scorpius's hips, to his arse. Very carefully, he eased one finger inside, alongside Scorpius's own. Scorpius took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax around the pressure. It was better with James than it was by himself. There was the flush on James's cheeks, the sweat beginning to gleam along his collarbone, the heat of his cock.

Scorpius let James take over. He went very slowly, face a mask of concentration, until he found the spot that made Scorpius clench and moan. He wrapped his other hand around the back of Scorpius's skull and dragged him down to kiss him, mouth hungry and insistent, contrasting with the gentleness of his hand. Scorpius quivered. He was hard again.

"Do it," he whispered into the side of James's mouth.

James rolled on top of him, pulling out his fingers and leaving Scorpius aching, empty. He pulled a pillow out from under the quilt and told Scorpius to put it under his hips. Scorpius did, sprawling back and spreading his legs. He felt--scared, he thought, and very exposed, but then James covered his body with his own, bracing himself up on one arm. Their noses were just touching. James's overly long fringe was sticking to Scorpius's forehead.

"Do it," Scorpius repeated, staring up into hazel eyes.

James did. It hurt, but Scorpius forced himself to breathe, to relax. He had felt worse pain than this in his life.

"Are you--" James began.

"I'm fine." Then he said, "Please."

James moaned and began to move. It didn't last very long for either of them after that, even Scorpius, who had already come once.

 

"You are fucking unbelievable," James told him. He was playing with Scorpius's hair and Scorpius was curled into his shoulder, arm across James's chest.

"I know." Scorpius smiled into James's skin. He felt--good. A little sore, a little scared, but he thought that was the price of admission. But mostly he felt--good.

James had spelled away the wet spot and cleaned both of them up, as Scorpius had at some point misplaced his brain and nerve endings, then pulled the quilt over them. It smelled like him, smoke and leather and green growing things.

"Where is this, anyway?" Scorpius asked.

"My bedroom at the Otter."

"It's very neat."

James snorted. "Guess the Room figured it'd better be clean or I wouldn't be getting your trousers off."

"The Room has sense." Scorpius closed his eyes. He knew they should go back to Gryffindor, but he couldn't summon the will to move. James was pleasantly warm, in contrast with the cool air, and smelled nice, and his bed was very comfortable.

James nudged him, after Scorpius was very nearly asleep. "Know what else it's called?"

"Mm?"

"The Come and Go Room," James sniggered. "Wonder why."

"Shut up, Potter." Scorpius was awake all of a sudden, wondering if that was what James wanted--to come and go. Of course that's what they always did. Or what they mostly did.

But James didn't move, except to maneuver his shoulder into a more comfortable position.

 

Scorpius twitched awake when James rolled over. He opened his eyes, and looked at the back of James's neck, at the secretive dark hair he could barely see curling at the base of his skull. In the dark, James's body was more of a suggestion of warmth, of weight, than anything substantial. Scorpius tried not to feel as very afraid as he felt.

He put his fingers on the skin at the top of James's spine, right on the first vertebra. James made a sleepy, inquisitive sound, and rolled back over to face him.

"James?" Scorpius whispered.

"Hm?" James half-opened his eyes.

"My parents hate each other," he said, "and I've never had a real conversation with my father, or my mother, either, because she pretends sometimes but she doesn't care what I have to say."

James pulled him closer. Scorpius closed his eyes and hid under his chin, pressing his nose to the smooth skin of James's chest. James stroked a hand up and down his back.

"It's hard sometimes," Scorpius said. He didn't know why he was still talking. "It's really--hard. I haven't seen them together since my first year at Hogwarts. And I am so afraid that I will end up like that."

"You won't," James said into the crown of his head.

"And," Scorpius said, "my father really is a Death Eater. He tortured people. He still has the shadow of the Dark Mark on his arm. And my mother's no better."

"You're not them."

"I'm just so scared," he said, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Don't be," James said. "Please don't be." There was something in his voice, quiet and rough with sleep, and it was enough that after a while, Scorpius could fall back asleep.

 

Not very much time later, Scorpius Malfoy woke up next to James Potter for the first morning. James, predictably enough, both sprawled and stole the covers.

Scorpius kicked him, refusing to linger in the moment, or think about all the--talking, or notice how very nice James looked, all spread out, like a banquet feast in the Great Hall. He then kicked James again, as punishment for having inspired such an insipid simile. "Wake up."

James came awake slowly, with a lot of stretches and half-lidded eyes. Scorpius didn't know quite what to expect, but James reached for him and they ended up having sex again.

"This will be fun to explain to your blood--" Scorpius caught himself, "brother."

James shrugged. They were a few staircases away from the Fat Lady yet. Students had begun drifting down to the Great Hall, for the last school breakfast of the year. Scorpius realized he wouldn't have to sit through another full English breakfast for months and months, and smiled in spite of himself.

Norman was sitting in the Common Room when they arrived. James slipped up the staircase without glancing back. Scorpius sighed and dropped onto the couch next to him. "Did you manage to keep your trunk packed?"

"Yeah." Norman eyed him. "You had sex, didn't you?"

"No," Scorpius lied, primly.

"I bloody hate you. And you still won't tell me who the mystery lover is."

"No." Scorpius decided that Norman was not being sarcastic when he said "mystery lover," despite the fact that he and James had not bothered to stagger their arrivals back at the Common Room, and James looked as disheveled and post-coital as Scorpius felt.

Norman sighed. "You're so bloody thick, Scorp."

"I am not thick."

"You can give it up anytime you want, everyone bloody knows."

Scorpius flicked his hair back. James wasn't the only one who needed a haircut. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Norman heaved himself up. "Well, I'm going to go drown my celibate woes in sausage."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow, unaware that Norman knew words with so many syllables. "Enjoy yourself."

"Oh, I will. Have fun explaining this one to Al." And with that, he was gone.

Scorpius steeled himself and headed upstairs. Al was knotting his Gryffindor tie.

"Morning," Scorpius said.

"Hello. Have a nice night with my brother?"

"Not particularly."

Al rolled his eyes. "You know--I don't even want to know at this point."

"There's nothing to know," Scorpius said, feeling queasy. He felt worse about lying to Al than he did about lying to Norman, because Al was nice enough to want to believe him.

"Course there isn't." Al finished with his tie, and waited for Scorpius to dress. He shoved his rumpled clothes into his trunk. There wasn't time for a shower, just a change and quick brushing of his teeth. Which meant that he'd have to sit on the Hogwarts Express, prevaricating to Al Potter whilst reeking of James Potter's come.

They sat next to each other at breakfast. Al was sending Bridget many long, searching looks across the tables.

"Quit it," Scorpius told him. "I'm sure she'll visit."

"Do you think so?"

He sighed--Al had perked up noticeably. "I would, if I were dating you."

"You still can. Visit, I mean."

"We'll see."

"I'll miss her," Al said quietly, into his cup of tea.

"I know you will." Scorpius nudged him with his shoulder.

"I'd ask if you're going to miss your mystery lover, or James, or Nearly Headless Nick or whoever else you're having midnight rendezvous with, but I know you wouldn't tell me."

"I'll miss--" Scorpius stopped. James and Ira were sitting at the far end of the table, although he didn't dare look at them. "Certain things."

Al sighed. "Aren't we a bunch of cheerful Nifflers this morning."

 

On the train, Al ended up sitting with Bridget and her Ravenclaw friends. Scorpius was fairly certain that he was pleased with this development, as exhaustion had crashed over him in the carriage down from the castle; Al wasn't pushing for anything this morning, but keeping up some level of pretense was draining nonetheless. This way, he could lean his head on the window and not feel obligated to even pretend to listen to whatever Alexandra, Rhys, and Cara Boot were talking about.

He watched trees and rocks and green hills roll past the window. It was a sunny day; there were a few clouds, but high in the sky, and insubstantial, like the clumps of sheep's wool that sometimes clung to the fences outside of Hogsmeade. After a while he fell asleep.

 

Cara nudged him awake as they were pulling into King's Cross. He helped her pull her trunk down--excellent Keeper she was, tall she was not--and maneuver it into the hallway.

"Thanks," she said. A Ravenclaw Chaser helped her get it down onto the platform, giving her an appreciative glance, which she returned.

Scorpius rolled his eyes and attended to his own trunk. His mother's follow-me enchantment had worn off after third year, and ever since then it had stubbornly resisted being re-charmed. It wasn't heavy, as the lightening charms had stuck, but it was still bulky.

"Here, let me," James said. Together they got it onto the platform. James's trunk was already on the platform, down by a different car, which meant that he must have come looking for him.

They looked at each other. Around them, parents hugged squirming first-years; somewhere, a cat's tail got trodden on, and it yowled. The red engine hissed steam.

"Well," James said.

Scorpius reached out and touched his jaw, very lightly, just a feathering of his fingertips across James's stubble. "I'll see you."

James nodded. "You know you can come to Ottery St. Catchpole this summer," he said quickly. "Al told me you were thinking about it."

Scorpius shrugged, to mask the fact that his stomach had started turning circles, like a Snitch in the sky. "Don't know what my parents have planned."

"Well. Think about it." James smiled at him. "Gotta go."

"See you."

"Yeah."

They stood for another moment. Scorpius did not know, in that moment, what he wanted to do or what he wanted to say; but then he had no time, as Al was coming to say goodbye, then he was saying goodbye to Norman and meeting his Muggle parents, who still appeared shell-shocked after four years of Platform Nine and Three Quarters; and then his father appeared, cutting through the crowd in his severe black cloak, and it was time to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. About the AU tag: When I had the original idea for this fic, I started writing before bothering to do any research. Mea culpa, but I didn't realize that JKR had specified the identity of Mrs. Draco Malfoy, and by the time I had, I was in eyeballs-deep and it would have taken some (shall we say) complex maneuvering to shoehorn in Astoria Greengrass. So although I didn't intend it to be AU at all, it is. But only in that one respect. Everything else is as canon-compliant as I could make it.
> 
> 2a. About the ending: I will admit that this story goes on in my head. But, due to various RL factors, I cannot currently make taking down the next three (four, five, eighteen) years of Scorp's life a priority--so, instead of letting this languish on my hard drive, I figured I would go ahead and post it, in case someone out there can derive any pleasure from reading it. As Houses is posted, though, it is a complete work, although I hope to continue it someday.  
> 2b. Some time later: This is continued (for 10,000 words, anyway) in [Games](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923463).
> 
> 3\. Most importantly: Thank you to D., without whom I could not have gotten through the 20,000 words that made this entire bloody thing make sense. So, dearest D., thank you for allowing me to plunge you into the murky, giant squid-infested waters of Harry Potter fandom, and thank you more for your intelligent responses to all of the emails I sent you that went something like "oh my holy christ, what AM I DOING, KILL ME NOW."


End file.
